


Drowning

by Arobininthefog



Category: Vis a Vis | Locked In (Spain TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Romance, Zurena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:53:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arobininthefog/pseuds/Arobininthefog
Summary: Zulema and Macarena after the riot have to deal with their past, but also their future.The time to escape is over, there's no more freedom awaiting them outside the four walls of the prison, as they once thought. Both must come to terms with their past decisions and they have to create a new life from their ashes.Can a scorpion and a canary live together or will their death be inevitable?
Relationships: Zulema Zahir/Macarena Ferreiro
Comments: 173
Kudos: 188





	1. A new beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fanfiction ever published, so please be sympathetic but no less critical. I start by saying that I am Italian so English is not my native language so I apologize for any mistake already in advance.  
> I decided to write this fanfiction because, having not really appreciated the ending of the spin-off, I wanted to elaborate my own story about the future of my favourite characters.  
> Continuing this work for me will be definitely a very difficult task since constancy in every field has never been my thing. I hope that this story - like many other fanfictions about Vis a vis have so far been for me - can be a time of escape for you all from everyday life. Please comment or contact me on tumblr at @arobininthefog for any advice or reflection. I would really appreciate it.

The revolt did not end in the best way. After all it was to be expected. Zulema and Macarena were immediately identified by the guards as those who had instigated the rise of the revolt and also, as the murderers of Sandoval and Hierro.  
This meant life imprisonment and at least, solitary confinement for the next two weeks. No one had ever been locked up there for so long in a row. The silence had become more deafening and the air inside more and more asphyxiating, day after day. Everything seemed to dilate and muffle at the same time.

\- - - - - - - 

Macarena was running through dense vegetation, she was free at last. Every fiber of her body felt pervaded by new possibilities, so vivid and tangible. She could hear distant gunshots, muffled by the distance and perhaps also by her euphoria, that made her heart pump the blood throughout her body in a frantic way and her breath so loud. 

Arrived at a water source she mirrored herself in the surface. Her reflection smiled mischievously and asked her, "Well, now where are you going? Will you live like Bear Grills from now on, or what? You left the only home that you had to run away, but to go where? "  
"I can make a new one"  
As an answer to her statement she only received a snort and a derisive chuckle from her own reflection. 

Suddenly she saw Zulema approaching her reflection in a feline way, without ever abandoning the gaze from the real Macarena. She caressed almost imperceptibly her sternum then, leaning languidly, dropping her arms on Macarena's shoulders, she left a trail of kisses on the neck of the reflected figure. Maca watched that completely absurd and far-fetched scene as a shiver run down her back and a tinkling sensation pervaded her where Zulema had touched her reflection.  
In a blink of an eye, Macarena was thrown backwards, grabbed by her scalp, and then she found herself face to face with a quite fleshy and bloody Zulema scratching, tearing every flap of skin she could reach, kicking, hitting irrepressibly and then finally biting her there, where just before her reflection had kissed her tenderly.  
Macarena, incapacitated by defending herself, remained motionless watching in the reflection as she was brutally torn apart.  
Her eyes similar to those of a deer captured in the headlights.  
A gush of blood, a fire going on and finally blackness.

\- - - - - - -

“Maca?!”  
“…I’m fine”  
“Sure, I quite heard how much you were fine.” Zulema answered sarcastically sighing.  
“Well it’s not any of your fucking business by the way!”  
“It is from the moment I was sleeping, what’s the matter mmh? Is there a cockroach or something there, sweetie?”  
“I had a nightmare.”  
Unexpectedly Zulema did not respond but remained in a respectful silence, perhaps even sympathetic.

\- - - - - - -  
Adapt, become and evolve.

Macarena could no longer bear the silence and the asphyxiating stillness which reigned in that cubicle.  
Now that she found herself alone with only her own thoughts, she felt that all of them suddenly resurfaced, overwhelming her. She could no longer avoid them. They did not have a shape, they only hovered threateningly and the more she tried to give them a frame the more they choked her.

She burst into tears and screamed without the slightest restraint, unable to contain herself further.  
Her throat became inflamed, her eyes clouded and her arms had begun to tremble imperceptibly. She heard those strange metallic noises like a skater's blade against the icy surface that she had heard after her father's death, after the first time she had killed someone with a gun.  
Finally, she begun to feel tiredness overwhelming her body. She collapsed on the ground while an undisturbed cockroach walked near her in the icy floor. 

Zulema began to sing what could be a lullaby from the cadence. Macarena wondered if it was the same one which, as Rizos had told her, she had sung to Fatima. She allowed herself to be lulled by those incomprehensible words that seemed to sooth the throb that had inexplicably assailed her.

"Zulema..." She didn't know what she really wanted to say, she couldn't find the words.  
She couldn’t give boundaries to the turmoil that was pervading her.  
Perhaps she wanted to say aloud that she was not well, or maybe something else to which it was not possible to give a name. Perhaps that was a silent scream of loneliness and despair, the desperate search for anything that for a moment could give her even the vague impression of not being alone there, in that cage that was no longer the prison in which she was living, but the chains and bars that she had forged herself, day by day. 

Zulema immediately saw the meaning behind that only word suspended like an invocation of a prayer to a god to be listened. 

“I know.” 

Zulema continued to sing the lullaby until she was sure that Macarena on the other side of the wall had fallen asleep.  
The next few days passed rather quickly, both too busy tidying up their thoughts. Zulema had stopped counting the days interspersed with the canteen food, which was thrown into the cell by a small opening and which often ended up three quarters on the floor. Time and space seemed to fade before her eyes, increasingly indistinct. Now what would she do? The revenge had not been sweet or even liberating as she tought it would. Maybe at the beginning, but now that sweetness was gradually giving way to a bitter taste of desolation. 

The justice done would not bring back the fawn eyes of her Fatima, her shy, almost uncertain smile and that intense smell that Zulema felt viscerally when she had been near her daughter. It had awakened in her one of the many parts that she had spent her whole life suffocating, silencing. One of the many parts that had not had the opportunity to bloom in her life and that now, similar to funeral lenses, left a mournful echo that came from afar and that sometimes, in the most difficult moments, it would raise its voice, it would scream, and sometimes it seemed almost to get the better of her.  
The door suddenly opened with a loud metallic thud.  
The wait for a tomorrow had come to an end.

\- - - - - - -

Back in their cell, Maca was about to settle in her previous bunk bed when, remembering that the night before the uprising Zulema had confessed to her that her daughter had been sleeping there, she changed her mind.  
"Do you want to take my place in this bed here? The new guards won't even notice."  
Zulema shrugged and nodded at the same time as she got on the bed with the same feline snap such as that fateful night.  
Maca was about to come down when she felt pulled by the wrist by no other than Zulema Zahir. 

Zulema looked confused as if she could not give voice to that request but not even prevent herself from doing that sudden gesture.  
Maca was stuck for a few seconds, suspended.  
She knew this decision would change everything.  
She decided to cross the red line again, she climbed up. 

Zulema curled up at the bottom of the bed taking up as little space as possible and Macarena cautiously did the same.  
In that moment she realized that their orbits were getting closer than ever, and that if they didn’t create a little distance in that asphyxiating proximity there would be an imminent collision that they both knew was not supposed to happen that night. 

That night, like the previous ones, was dedicated to saying goodbye to parts of them irreparably broken. From now on these glass splinters would be weapons that they would use at any times to hurt, to kill, to mimic and to survive. Through them they would see multiple facets from reality but at the same time they would risk day by day getting lost in them. Perhaps they would have an extra weapon to defend themselves from the outside world but at the same time an additional enemy to fight, themselves.  
They would continue to bleed leaving indelible traces on the people who crossed their paths.

\- - - - - - -

Both were startled awake by the metallic noise of a guard's club crashing into the bars of their cell.  
“Get off the bed, you bitches in heat! I don't know what crap the previous guards let you do, but I can assure you that from now on things will change! Hurry up lazy mosquitos "  
Both stood up without looking at each other and without answering the man.

\- - - - - - -

When Macarena entered the careen, she saw Zulema slamming her tray forcefully against the guard’s skull, the man that had woken up them earlier. Zulema threw herself against him, scratching his face and then suffocating him.  
Looking up she saw Macarena throwing herself forward against the guard who was reaching her, slamming him against a column and then punching him until she was sure that he had lost consciousness.  
Like two predators holding their victims still with their paws they scanned the environment around them.  
In the meantime, the other inmates were shouting and slamming their own trays on the tables in sign of appreciation.  
Their eyes met. In that look that Macarena and Zulema exchanged, there was a deeply understanding, but also a promise.  
There was the awareness that from then on, they would no longer be alone as long as they would have been there for each other.  
As they were brought out of the careen by the guards, Zulema whispered with an open smile:"Que te pasa, rubia?"

"Yo hago lo que tu haces.*"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * It’s a quote from The brilliant friend of Elena Ferrante.
> 
> For now I have not wanted to frame the characters well yet and their real story will start from the second chapter. Let's say that this is a chapter to bridge the end of Vis a vis and the story I am going to tell. I promise you that the next ones will be less disconnected and will have a slightly more linear plot, or at least I hope so. And above all I apologize for the indecent syntax. It is the first time that I write a text entirely in English. Although I am not very satisfied with the result, I wanted to publish it since it took me a long time to write it. Maybe next time I write in Italian? Please tell me what you think in the comment below. Thank you all for reading!


	2. Melancholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zulema and Macarena after the riot have to deal with their past, but also their future.  
> The time to escape is over, there's no more freedom awaiting them outside the four walls of the prison, as they once thought. Both must come to terms with their past decisions and they have to create a new life from their ashes.  
> Can a scorpion and a canary live together or will their death be inevitable?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I apologize. I said that the previous chapter would have been an introduction to the true story but in the end, finding it all too reductive, I decided to dedicate another one, this one. To make up for it, I promise you that the next chapter, which I hope to publish tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, will be a real bomb. Probably this chapter like the previous one has a too fast pace that I hope the next ones won't have. However, I think it's the best thing since to avoid an introduction too long. As you will soon notice, this chapter is full of dialogues. Unfortunately I only noticed it by rereading it at the end and I didn't find the strength to change it. I hope you don't mind the costant repartee. The real story will begin from the next but these first two chapters were necessary to contextualize it. In spite of everything, I hope you will like it. Every comment means a lot to me as well as every kudos. I can't wait to know what you think of this one. Enjoy the reading!

After they were taken away from the careen, they were shoved into a cell they had never seen before.  
It took a while but then, two guards entered and tied them up to the ceiling, one opposite to the other.  
Then the new director, that they had not yet seen, entered the room saying: "One guard died of suffocation while the other is now being operated on the brain".

He bent up to be a few inches from the face of Macarena, then he whispered, as if, what he was about to say, was a precious secret: “How does it sound, your pretty face scarred for all your life from now on?” Macarena stared straight ahead. She was well aware that if he wanted to do that nobody would save her. 

Zulema replied trying to capture his attention: “What do you want? Information on how we plan to organize the next riot, your murder, the kidnapping of your children? Do you want to scare us? I am afraid you will be disappointed. Why don’t you ask around why we all nicknamed the previous director Barbie?"

“Oh, it’s not necessary. I know everything about you all. I also heard about a quite interesting way to keep you behaved. She was a guard if I’m not mistaken, that proposed a solution to keep you at bay.  
Anyone of you that will commit any infringement, will see the consequences directly on the other partner. Well, I can assure you that I am quite true to my promises. In the previous male prisons that I have been to, I was not famous for my patience and I can assure you that there is a reason if they chose me, following the events of the riot.”  
As he approached the exit he said to the guard that was watching over them: “Get them out.”

\-------

"What the fuck, girls? I had the ace, those cigarettes are mine!"  
"In another life, gitana."  
“Oh come on, are you all joking?!” Saray muttered while agitating her arms in sign of defeat.

While many were playing cards, the sun was barely visible due to the clouds. Macarena and Zulema sat on the steps, passing a cigarette once in a while in silence. Zulema had a wrinkled face and snorted like a caged animal. It seemed that nothing had changed. Everything had returned exactly as before. And she was now screwed exactly like before.

Rizos suddenly strode in thier direction with clenched fists while screaming: “Are you friends now? What did I miss?"  
Macarena was about to try to calm her down when Zulema promptly interrupted her.  
"Listen, charming prince of my shit, I'm not in the mood to assist to your jealousy scenes."  
Rizos at that point was about to launch on her, but Maca prevented it by standing in front of Zulema, spreading her arms in front of Rizos in a defensive way.

"I am not with her because we have exchanged friendship bracelets and now we are braiding each other's hair. The new director said that whatever the one does, the other suffers the consequences. And now I have to check that she doesn't get me killed. Claro? "  
“Oh, now I understand. Did you check that she didn't get you killed even while you fucked her last night? Because that's how the guards found you, entangled in each other.”  
"And so what Estefanía? Who I decide to fuck it’s none of your business. I thought we made that clear. "  
“You don't even deny it. Wow, well don't come crying to me when she will destroy your life. We were happy together, remember? I can smash the skulls of all the guards in this penitentiary and make sure no one twists even one of your finger, if that's the problem. "  
“No you can't and I don't need to be defended.”  
"So be it."

Rizos walked away while heading towards Saray. She sat herself on the thighs of the gypsy while screaming: ”This turn, we show it to them.”, trying to capture as much attention as possible.  
"How…touching! I didn't know that the two of us had fucked last night, by the way.” Zulema chuckled darkly.  
"Shut up, she wouldn't have believed me if I had denied it."  
"Sure. Whatever you say. "

\-------

"Joder, Zulema! Pass me that shirt so we finish the laundry and go to dinner. "  
"No."  
"What do you mean with no?"  
Zulema raised her eyebrows as if the question didn't deserve an answer. She shrugged and then she threw the shirt across the room.  
"Que te pasa?!"  
“Life has gotten pretty boring since we started walking on tiptoe like fucking ballet dancers in this madhouse. I'm dying of boredom. If you had mind your own business- "  
“Are you blaming me for what happened? But really? If it wasn't for me, that guard would have made sure that at least you would have woken up in the infirmary."  
“I don't need you, Macarenita. I've never needed anyone in all my life.”  
"Yeah, and look how you have shrunk"

Zulema grabbed her by the throat, hitting her against the wall behind.  
“Maybe this time I'm the one who puts you in the washing machine. Only this time, I'll make sure no one comes to get you out.”  
"You would never do it ... too impersonal" Macarena whispered as she tried to free herself from Zulema’s iron grip.  
Zulema snorted and grinned at the same time, letting her go just before she would lost consciousness.  
"You think you know me, but you don't know anything."  
“I don't need to know you to understand you. We are the reflection of each other, whether we like it or not."  
"Bullshit."  
"Really? So tell me why you saved me from the washing machine, I don't drink the bullshit that you wanted to kill me. You needed me. "  
"Put those fucking clothes alone in the washing machine"  
Zulema came out sneering, gnashing her teeth like a ravenous beast.

\---------  
One night, while the thunder raged outside and both could not sleep, Maca heard Zulema whispering to anyone in particular, but well aware of having the attention of the blonde: “I spent all my life chasing freedom. I was a prisoner for all my life, since I was born, even before ending up in this shit hole.  
And now, now I don't care, I don't know what to do with freedom. Maybe I got to the point where I really became worm food.” She covered her eyes with one hand as she emitted a lugubrious, bitter laugh. She sighed, “I’m so fucking tired”.  
Zulema did not seem to her, the type of person who talks about her problems to others, but she was learning over time that one can never really know a person, only facets set in a short instant. People change, our choices change us.  
"No Zulema, you can't be. You are el elfo del puto infierno, remember? " Macarena smiled, as if she were explaining an evidence to a small child.  
Zulema turned towards the wall covering herself with a blanket while Macarena caressed her back almost imperceptibly.  
“Que mierda estas haciendo?”  
“Nothing.”  
“Get that fucking hand off my back, immediately.”

\-------

One evening Maca was entering the laundry room for her turn, as she used to, when she dropped the basked she was holding, amazed by the scene that appeared before her.  
Flames were blazing across the room as Zulema watched the scene raptured.  
"What the heck are you doing?"  
“How nice of you to swing by, you just arrived at the right time. This fire is beautiful, don’t you think? They should put a fireplace somewhere. I could watch it for hours, it's mesmerizing.”  
“Zulema we must go out immediately. We will soon run out of oxygen and pass out.”  
Macarena shook her by the shoulders, hoping that in this way her words would reach her, hoping to awaken her from that insane state.  
“To go where Macarenita? We are in prison, have you not noticed that?”  
Zulema didn't move for the exit, even when she started to cough uncontrollably. On the contrary, she began to move her hands like a conductor as if suddenly she could control the lashing of the flames around them, feeling an hidden symphony.  
“Please Zulema-”  
Macarena blurted in a frantic way.  
“-I have an idea. Would you like to see the moon tonight? I know a window behind, near the chicken coop, there the stars and the moon can be seen very well! We can put ourselves there and somehow skip the night checks. It looks really good there and I...I hid a pack of cigarettes inside an old tool jar.”  
Zulema silently studied her, thinning her look and pouting like she did every time she was annoyed by something, then she strode out like anything happened.  
“Vamos!”

Macarena muttered softly while kicking a washing machine, covered in alcohol, that the flames had not yet reached.

\----------

When they arrived in the small disused warehouse, Macarena could no longer bear the silence and those questions that were accumulating in her head, creating a whirlwind that engulfed every other thought. "Why did you do that?"  
Zulema shrugged like it was a distant event, like it didn't matter now.  
"Don't do that again."  
"Dios mio, I didn't want to kill myself! I just wanted...I don't know-I don't know what I wanted to do. But not that, alright? "  
Zulema grabbed an old glass bottle on the ground and she threw it across the room, watching it shatter.  
Macarena silently stared at the moon from the window and after the silence had released the accumulated tension, previously tangible between the two, she whispered: "I also don't know why some evening, I come to watch the moon here. It's quite fascinating, isn't it? Will we go back tomorrow too?"  
Zulema just hummed in appreciation, any word was irrelevant at this point. Maca knew that the time for dialogue had come to an end.  
Now the night had to settle what the day had brought to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Some choices in the plot are rather far-fetched but when I came up with the idea of the warehouse, I was unable to abandon it. Reflecting on all the absurd twists and turns that occurred in the four seasons of Vis a vis, I came to the conclusion that it may be at least partially negligible.  
> Let's say that if the first chapter was characterized by silence, full of unspoken words, this wants to forcefully clarify, sometimes succeeding while other times failing. I hope to be able to read your comment about it with your opinions soon. I hug you all!


	3. You were the only home that I ever had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zulema and Macarena after the riot have to deal with their past, but also their future.  
> The time to escape is over, there's no more freedom awaiting them outside the four walls of the prison, as they once thought. Both must come to terms with their past decisions and they have to create a new life from their ashes.  
> Can a scorpion and a canary live together or will their death be inevitable?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the third chapter. Until now I published one chapter a day but well, in the long run, it will be impossible for me to maintain this frequency. The next ones will be published once in a week, or so I hope. This chapter could be a little disturbing for someone so be advised. Thank you all for the support. Every single comment means the world to me and every criticism would be gold to me for improving. Enjoy the reading!

Months had passed, the summer had reached the prison offhandedly, making the nights long and sultry.  
The air sometimes was unbreathable. Sleeping inside the prison, like every year, was becoming an arduous undertaking.  
However, Macarena and Zulema hadn’t this problem.  
As it had become a habit, they would find themselves every night in the warehouse, near the chicken coop. 

If escaping from prison could seem an unachievable task, this place at the contrary, seemed to be completely forgotten by everyone.  
It was easy to reach it, after putting their pillows under the covers of their camp bed so that the guard that passed during the patrol wouldn’t notice their absence.  
Every following morning it was enough to join the group of companions assigned to the chicken coop and then, pretending to have forgotten something behind, re-enter into the prison unnoticed.  
Afterwards, they would start their shift at the laundry like nothing ever happened the night before.

By now, everyone had stopped asking questions. Even Rizos seemed to slowly accept their unusual relationship, while Saray seemed unable to hold back from shouting spicy comments every time she saw them sneaking inside like two thieves.  
They weren't a thing, absolutely not. But that of the warehouse had become a habit, and everybody knows that bad habits die hard. Right?

They often remained silent as they watched the moon, sitting on the table near the window. Sometimes they actually talked about the plus and the minus but most of the time they listened an old dusty radio that they had found among the wreckage.  
It almost gave them the impression of being free, of being part of the outside world. They loved to hear the weather forecast and, in particular, the points of the highway that would be busier the following morning because of traffic jams.

On better days, they would even let themselves go completely, dancing between the dust and the rubble while listening what the radio was broadcasting at the time.  
In those months the monotony had stopped being asphyxiating, it almost seemed to be reassuring, refreshing for their souls.  
Finally, both had reached a meeting point. In their small daily gestures, that they followed like a mantra, they had found an unusual balance. So often, Zulema would find herself smiling while watching the sky, thinking about how actually she had shrunk, longing for the lesson on the following morning's traffic and the beautiful sight of the light of the moon that managed to infiltrate trough the holes in the roof. 

Over time, that place had become their secret refuge, which allowed them to escape from prison, even if only for a few hours.  
And now in retrospect, things could have gone wrong in many ways, but Zulema never expected that, what actually happened, would happen.  
Life could be really ironic when she wanted to.  
For the first time in her life she saw the prison as a home.  
Now she didn't want to leave, but she had no choice.

\--------

"Come on, dance with me! "  
“This is a partner dance for lovebirds!"  
"And with that? I hop every evening like a grasshopper for the rock songs you like, now it’s your turn to sacrifice yourself"  
"Fine. What should I do?"  
"Well, I'm not so sure, I've never done it but I suppose-" Macarena murmured frowning, as she used to do when she was faced with a problem she didn't know how to solve.  
"Yes so, give me your hand. Now you have to put your other hand behind my back and then I think we just have to take several steps back and forth in tune. "  
"Joder, stop stepping on my feet!"  
"It's not my fault if you constantly change your direction."  
Zulema snorted and took her by the waist, holding her against herself, placing Macarena's feet on top of hers so that she could lead.  
Macarena smiled amused while saying: "You're a control freak, Zulema!".  
“And you're awkward. Stay still, if you can at least manage that much. "

Zulema looked straight ahead, resting her head on Macarena's shoulder, savouring this last peaceful moment before the storm, taking advantage of that moment so not to face Macarena's gaze.  
"Tomorrow morning, they'll transfer me to another prison. They didn't say which one. Well...now you know, we can go to bed. This music of yours, besides being terribly boring, made me sleepy!"  
While she was about to live, she felt Macarena stiffen and then squeeze her hard, sinking her nails to the point of letting out droplets of blood from Zulema's skin. Well, Zulema didn't mind this. It was the kind of pain that didn't really hurt, the kind of pain that covered the real one. She found reassuring the awareness that the signs of Maca’s nails would remain with her the next day. 

It came back to her mind, the evening in which she forced Macarena to tattoo a tear on her left cheek with only a needle and a bottle of ink. She wanted to have an indelible trace that would remind her constantly of the time spent with her daughter and the unbridgeable void that her absence had left in her body and soul.  
She knew how fickle life could be, and she wanted to greedily carry with her out of here the traces of her past, like battle wounds to be proud of.

"Tranquila, I'll send you a postcard."  
“Little piece of shit, how long have you known? No, I don't want to know. You…"  
Macarena pushed her against the wall behind, holding her by the collar of the uniform raising a hand to hit her. But she didn't hit her. Both seemed suspended, motionless. Suddenly, they looked at each other as if they were seeing the other for the first time. As if they were awakened from a dream, they suddenly realized that they were inextricably linked for life, viscerally.  
Macarena continued to shake her head violently in a complete state of denial as several tears came down uncontrolled, scratching her face. Eventually, fatigue and exhaustion seemed to get the better of her. She collapsed on Zulema, forehead against forehead, as Zulema prevented her from falling ruinously to the ground.  
At first, Zulema didn't understand what Macarena was saying while sobbing but then she managed to understand the words that Maca was murmuring repeatedly.  
"I hate you" 

Macarena sighed, like she had just revealed a truth that had weighed on her heart unremittingly until now.  
In a lightning bolt Macarena moved away from Zulema and without looking back she shouted.  
"Then go away."

\---------

Macarena was observing a small cup with clear water inside. A drop of blood fell into the cup in a loud plof.  
The liquid inside the cup turned pink.  
A second drop and then others followed in quick succession.  
One hit her on the forehead. She looked up and she saw her dead parents on the wall along with many other unrecognizable faces. Those cadaveric naked bodies wiggled on each other, making it impossible to distinguish which parts of their body belonged to who.  
Their eyes were blank, lost in emptiness.  
They desperately extended their arms towards her in a silent cry.  
Their mouths were wide open in an attempt to scream but only an anguished hiss came echoing across the room.  
Maca was about to try to reach out to help them when suddenly the cup she held in her other hand shattered on the floor in a loud crack.  
Pieces of pottery scattered across the room.  
In that fraction of a second the walls seemed to give way and suddenly Macarena began to grope among the various corpses while she could still clearly hear the loud crack of the cup echoing in the room like the sound of a gunshot.  
The ferrous taste of blood pervaded her mouth. She felt beneath her other bodies grabbing her, bringing her down with them.  
Macarena could not help but drown in the blood.

She woke up with a start.  
Zulema's bed was empty, while the others in the cell were still sleeping undisturbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be sad. The best is yet to come, I have big plans for their future, have faith my loyal readers! The road is still long if you are ready to follow it, I hope that I'll be able to surprise you.
> 
> Spoiler of the next chapter...  
> Zulema will not vanish into thin air but we will see her stay in prison at the same time as Macarena. I also believe that I will add several flashbacks. Do not be afraid, the two of them will be forever inseparable and their reunification inevitable.


	4. Absence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try to be as short as possible. For those interested, I have slightly modified the previous chapters by correcting some errors and by making some sentences a little more fluent. I finally structured the following chapters, there should be six more, but there’s the possibility that I will add others if other ideas in the mean time come to mind. I am still deciding whether to make a sequel or not, I will see depending on your feedback and on the time that I will actually have available. Soon I will go on vacation so I'm not so sure if, excluding the next chapter, I will be able to publish the others. Nonetheless, even if on vacation, I will read and respond to every single comment.  
> You have no idea how nice it is for me to receive your feedback. Don't be shy, even a few words make the difference to me.  
> Thanks to all for the comments that you left me in the previous chapters, you're too good!  
> As I have already said, any criticism is also welcome as an opportunity for me to improve. Warm hugs!

Macarena had never liked kitchens since she was a child. They were too noisy places. There was always a pot that boiled, the sizzle of oil or the chattering of kitchen utensils that forced her always to be on guard against any danger. And perhaps, more out of habit than anything else, even in prison she had tried to spend as little time in there as possible.  
However, things had changed in the past few days.  
Suddenly, she found herself in a position to be willing to take extra turns to have a few shifts in the kitchen.  
Generally, her companions would refuse to take their turn with her because of her clumsiness and inability to do the simplest jobs, therefore she often found herself paired with Rizos, the only one who didn't seem to mind her presence.  
"Are you going to explain to me why you spend hours and hours every day staring at the burning stoves?"  
"It's mesmerizing, don't you think?" She turned the stove off and on again with an absent and dreamy look.  
"Isn't there a little pyromaniac in you? Was it you that set the laundry on fire that time?"  
"No, it wasn't me."  
"It was Zulema, wasn't it? That's why you like fire so much now, it reminds you of her"  
"Maybe." She shrugged.  
They spent some time in a comfortable silence while Rizos sliced the various vegetables which would go into the dinner soup of the following evening.  
"I was just worried about you. I just wanted to protect you."  
"I know, but you can't always protect me. Besides, I can handle it on my own.”  
They embraced for a while, smiling at each other. After a while, Estefania interrupted the comfortable silence that had been created, interspersed only by the blade of the knife rhythmically sinking the carrots on the cutting board.  
"Do you like her?"  
"Who?"  
Rizoz raised her eyebrows in a knowingly way.  
"Oh. We've been through a lot together, nothing more - she grinned as she rolled her eyes, running a hand through her hair - Zulema and I? Come on! It could never have worked, not to mention the fact that she is a psychopath. No way, we could never be a thing!”  
"You didn’t answer my question"

\--------

During those few days spent in the new prison, Zulema could claim to have get a rather clear idea of the hierarchy that existed within those prison walls.  
A certain Dominga seemed to be in command, an elderly woman who could not even get up from a chair without help.  
Yet, she apparently ran the entire prison, including drug and prostitution trafficking.  
Her secret? A gun that she always carried with her.  
By now she had been there longer than all the others and she had learned well how to bribe the guards in such a way as to avoid the controls and always have a safe place to hide the gun, stolen many years before.

Zulema could not understand how that woman, although she possessed such a weapon, had never attempted an escape.  
Eventually, she concluded that, outside those walls, she would be nothing but an old woman before the eyes of all.  
Perhaps prison was the only place where she was still worth anything.  
Nevertheless, the fact that she had chosen not to flee did not mean that she didn't know how to do it, right?

\--------

Even that tiring day had come to an end, Zulema couldn't be more grateful to be wearing only a towel. All day long, she had been craving a bloody shower due to the infernal heat.  
Pity that things had to go to hell as always.  
In fact, when she finally opened the door to the showers, she found a little girl on the ground sobbing uncontrollably, held by her brown hair possessively by a woman that was pushing the girl's face against her belly, while others were watching.

She was Fatima, there was no shadow of a doubt.

Zulema screamed her name and immediately launched herself against the group of inmates who were surrounding the girl.  
She tried to protect the exit but was hit with an iron board in the shoulder and, immediately after, in the stomach, making her capitulate to the ground.  
At that point, it was a matter of a few moments for the whole group of prisoners to surround her.  
Some kicked her, others simply insulted her while spitting on her naked body.

She looked up to make sure that at least her daughter had managed to escape. She caught a glimpse of the girl's gaze just as she was opening the door. It wasn't Fatima, she didn't even look like her except for her long brown hair and her slender body.  
She gasped in deep pain and then she lost consciousness.

\---------

She woke up several hours later on the cold floor. She was alone.

Ploff. Ploff.  
Droplets of water kept falling from a tap.

Ploff. Ploff. Ploff.  
The noises persisted cadenced, impacting on the floor tiles.  
That silence, contaminated by those droplets, seemed to be scanned second by second.  
The relentless time seemed to be a disinterested spectator of her decay.

Zulema looked up at a small, unattainable and opaque window from which a glimpse of the moon was barely visible.  
She got up from the ground, looked at it for a moment and then went out with the bloody iron rod in her hand. 

Now, she knew what to do.

\---------

Macarena, was looking at the moon outside the warehouse while sitting on her usual space .  
She sighed while inadvertently running her fingertips over the deteriorated wood of the table following the path of the grains.  
"Zulema, if you too are now looking at the moon..."  
She punched alongside her, in the part of the table that Zulema used to occupy.  
"Fuck, I'm going crazy! It's all your fault! How could you leave me here alone? How could you give up? You should have fought... I should have fought for you." She took a deep breath. "You know, sometimes during the day I call you so that you could pass me the baking soda or the toothpaste, or when a stupid joke comes to mind.  
And then I say it out loud, but you're not there. And then I realize it. And I feel like there’s a hole in my chest, and it's so deep and it seems to suck me in.  
It is as if by leaving, you had deprived me of a vital part of me and now I can no longer go on.  
I wonder if you can understand me, I wonder if you too are now suffering like this, I hope so with all my being.”  
She sighed, looking away for a moment, then she smiled.  
“…but do you want to know the most absurd thing of all? When I look at the moon and imagine that you too are, looking at it on the other side, wherever you are, that unfillable emptiness seems almost to lessen for a short period of time.  
I feel almost close to you and sometimes when I reach out to the moon I almost feel your hand touching mine.  
It lasts a moment but I suppose it is enough for driving me crazy. We're still conjoined, aren't we?"

\---------

Zulema entered Dominga's cell with a determined, bestial look.  
Suddenly, a robust woman at the side of the elderly one, seeing her full of blood and with the iron rod in her hand, punched her, making her bump into a mirror that was hanging on the wall.  
The mirror shattered.  
"Uhh-ahh" Zulema spat blood on the floor and then burst out laughing.  
She cracked the woman's skull with a clear hit and then grabbed the gun she had glimpsed hidden behind a piece of furniture.  
Then, she forced Dominga's cellmates to kneel against the wall. The two began to cry and to tremble, stammering mostly inconsistent prayers.  
Zulema snickered, then she started speaking while ironically emphasizing each word.  
"Por favor, por favor, don't kill me, the world needs me!!  
I will reveal a little secret to you, my dears. Tomorrow, when you will be dead, the world will give a damn about your past lives and those few people dear to you out there will be relieved, because you will no longer be a burden.  
They'll forget your names even before you get into a coffin, all pigeonholed in a wall like collectible figurines .  
Sabes por qué? Because you already died when you set foot in here.  
The only difference is that this is a subtle death, which deteriorates you day after day, while what I offer you is quick and painless.  
I'm doing you a favour, can't you see that? Consider me as the elf who brings Christmas presents because Santa Claus is too busy.”

Zulema fired two shots that hit them straight in the head.  
After a few seconds, she heard the sounds of gates opening and guards in the distance screaming to come out and gather outside.

"How do I get out of here?"  
Zulema asked Dominga that in the meantime had fallen miserably to the ground in her attempt to escape.  
"And what the hell do I know"  
Zulema grabbed a mirror fragment on the ground and stuck it in the woman’s leg.  
"Today I'm generous, second chance."  
"It's impossible"  
"Wrong answer." She moved the fragment inside the leg, widening the wound and causing the other woman to emit several grumbles of pain, similar to those that she was used to hear as a child from an elderly dog, skin and bones devoured by ticks.  
"Last attempt, otherwise I will cut your vena cava and there will be no doctor able to save you in time, you will bleed to death."  
She raised the fragment, taking the measurements like a professional surgeon.

"In the garage. I dug into the wall of the cleaning closet. If you move the locker you will find a passage that will lead you to the staircase leading to the garage where the guards park every day. If you'll crouch on the left side the cameras will not frame you. When you will arrive in the garage, however, there will be no blind spots. I used that passage only to carry drugs and cell phones, but if you want to escape, they will find out immediately. "  
"Maybe, if they weren't busy doing something else."

In an instant, Zulema took the woman by the neck, taking her out of the cell, pushing her over the handrail down from the third floor.  
She looked around and saw that there was no one who could have seen her except a terrified girl who was trying to make herself as small as possible against a corner. Zulema supposed that the guards had started to isolate the perimeter to identify the armed prisoner.  
"Today is your lucky day, would you hold it for me?"  
She put the gun in the hand of the trembling girl and walked undisturbed towards the closet before the guards could spot her.

\--------

“Da un solo paso en falso y te reviento la puta cabeza!”  
The guard, watching the various surveillance footage, spat out the Chinese food he was eating, seeing Zulema who was now holding his shotgun straight to his head on the screen next to him.  
"I'm in a bit of a hurry, would you mind giving me a lift?"  
The guard stared at her trembling, finally he nodded.  
"Well now, so as not to worry your friends upstairs, tell them that the van has no more gas and that you are going to fill it up. Mmh, and also tell them not to worry since you will make a trip to buy some food. Hmm? "  
The man did as he was told while Zulema opened the fortune cookie that was still intact on the coffee table. She snorted.  
"... this day will reserve you big surprises ... What do you say, Pablito, got it right this time?"

They got into the van, Zulema stood behind aiming the shotgun directly at the man's spine.  
"Where do I take you?"  
"I'm going home."  
The gates opened and the van drove off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a little bit longer than usual but it would have been unfair for me to leave you with bated breath like last time. I must confess that it was rather difficult for me to write this chapter. The next one is my favorite and therefore I hope it will be easier to write. So, what do you think of this chapter and the parallels with the previous one? I look forward to your comments and theories on how the story will evolve. Warm hugs!


	5. Bad idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you remember when I said in the last chapter that there would be six more chapters? Well, I suddenly came up with many other ideas and themes that I would like to tackle so pretend nothing happened. The road is still long, you will have to put up with me for a little longer. I must confess that in the end, this chapter came very different from how I originally designed it, I can't decide if I'm completely satisfied with the result. I hope that the deviation that my story is taking is not a failure in the end compared to my initial project. Enjoy the reading!

It was late afternoon when Saray and Maca's shift at the laundry was suddenly interrupted by the clanking of a security door opening.  
There it was standing no other than Zulema Zahir like a miraculous vision with a gun in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other.  
"So, how about getting some fresh air outside? I have a van waiting for us around the corner.”  
  
The first to recover from amazement was Saray who began to shout running to meet her with open arms.  
"¿Cómo lo hiciste, Zulema?”  
Zulema only smirked in response while eyeing the blonde that was gaping at her with a fishy face, pondering her.  
"What are you waiting for Macarenita, the proposal on her knees? Come on!"  
Saray pushed her forward to emphasize her point.  
  
"¿Que vas a hacer, gitana?"  
"I think I will remain for this time; all these piss-coloured jackets certainly don't wash themselves. Have fun!"  
She grinned winking as Zulema returned her smile, shaking her head in surrender while exiting flanked by Macarena.  
The two got in the wan then left from the rear exit.  
"They probably already noticed our absence-"  
"Then let's make this short tourist trip unforgettable!"  
Zulema interrupted her before she could finish the sentence dismissively.  
\--------  
“How did you get in?”  
“I asked a friend of mine for a ride.”  
“Is your friend still alive?”  
Zulema sped up the van pretending not to have heard the question.  
Macarena sighed then continued with her questions. “Where are we going, Zulema?”  
At that the woman’s face lit.  
“Guess!”  
  
\--------  
  
"What are you looking at, rubia?"  
"Those swallows” Macarena pointed them in the sky, over the prison fences. “When I got here in prison the first time, I thought they were crows, drawn by the blood and the despair that this infernal place concentrates. They are so magnificent! They’re wasted in here, don’t you think?”  
“Or perhaps they have reason to be here more than anything else.”  
Macarena smiled at her softly finally nodding in agreement.  
  
“This sky is the only bridge that binds us to the outside. Where would you go if you could be one of them?”  
Zulema's gaze hardened.  
“I could never be one of them. I would be a crow, tied to this cursed place to torment those after me. Unable to leave, too attracted to the smell of blood”  
“How can you say such a thing?”  
“Because that’s the way things are. It’s my nature and your pretty words and ifs won’t ever change it.”  
Macarena, sensing that she had hit a nerve, decided to change the subject. "I would go get myself a giant vanilla ice cream if I could!"  
Zulema snorted while putting out a cigarette on the steps.  
  
\--------

“No way! Is it what I think it is?”  
Zulema imperceptibly curled the sides of her mouth in a smile.  
In the distance it was possible to glimpse a stretch of sea, while a signboard at the left side of the road said ‘The best ice creams in all of Spain, seeing is believing!’.  
  
They left the van shortly afterwards in a service station proceeding on foot along the coast while the waves wet their feet.  
"Do you think the ice-cream shop still stands out a lot?"  
"I’m not so sure, you know, in the last period I haven't had a chance to drop by" Zulema mocked while rolling her eyes.  
"Do you think you're funny?"  
Before Zulema could answer, she was thrown into the sea.  
When she came up, she saw Macarena amusedly looking at her on the shore with her arms crossed. Zulema sneered back.  
"Never start a battle already lost at the start, blondie!"  
Zulema threw her in turn into the sea but Macarena promptly returned to the surface launching herself at her. They continued wrestling until Macarena started pouting like a child.  
"And now how do we get the ice cream if we are both soaked wet?"  
Zulema rolled her eyes pinching her nose.  
"Mierda."  
\--------  
It was already evening when both had finished eating their ice cream. There seemed to be no sign of policemen, but for safety, they both decided to drop by a nearby pub, a good place to go unnoticed and to escape undisturbed if necessary.  
The place was crowded, they both looked around cautiously. The room was lit only by red neon lights which created an intimate atmosphere while loud music permeated the room.  
  
_...it was a bad idea calling you up_  
_was such a bad idea 'cause now I'm even more lost...*_  
  
  
Both initially wary made their way through the crowd of people dancing. After a while, seeing that no one was looking at them, they began to relax and, after settling in an isolated corner, they started to dance following the rhythm of the music.  
It was a dream came true that both had never thought could ever become reality in the previous months.  
Macarena could hear the wild beating of her heart as adrenaline ran through her veins.  
Her euphoria reflecting in the eyes of the other woman before her eyes. Their gazes intertwined.  
"How about a drink?"  
Zulema nodded smiling as Macarena had never seen her do before. To Macarena, she looked like a child eyeing a sensational discovery for the first time. She reminded her of a phrase she once read in a book that sounded like 'I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice.' **  
Zulema's eyes seemed to hold an irresistible spark, Macarena lost herself in it. That night was completely theirs.  
  
_...it was a bad idea to think I could stop_  
_was such a bad idea, I can't get enough..._  
  
Arriving on the balcony they didn't even order the drink, they just grabbed two that were unattended then they threw themselves back into the fray while laughing uncontrollably.  
They didn't want to waste even a second of that precious time.  
“¿Cómo te parece?” Zulema asked while Macarena just nodded in response smiling.  
Although after a while their chests had returned to rise irregularly and their movements had become increasingly weak, they continued to follow that rhythm, the irresistible current that was lulling them into oblivion.  
  
They were not only free but also unborn. Their entire existence began and ended there. Time and space had dissolved before their eyes.  
They shared for a while their laboured breaths. Their closeness more and more intoxicating.  
  
_..."Darling, you're so pretty, it hurts"_  
_You pushed me up against my wall…_

At some point, Macarena inadvertently while dancing hit a glass wetting Zulema's tank top.  
She was about to apologize when Zulema with a lightning bolt imprisoned her with her arms against the wall observing her as a predator observes its victim before tearing them to pieces.  
  
_…It was a bad idea meeting you so late_  
_was such a bad idea 'cause I can't think straight…_  
  
Zulema looked at her closely, smiling mischievously, she already knew she had won this battle.  
"Do you surrender to me?"  
She whispered against Macarena's lips.  
The other tried to free herself but Zulema pushed her even more against the wall chuckling, leaning breast against breast, whispering in an even lower voice.  
"No, are you sure?"  
She caressed with reverence Macarena’s neck with the palm of her hand, a caress that winked at being able to turn into an iron grip in a split of a second.

Everything seemed suspended on a very fine thread, the fall inevitable.

"Quite" Macarena blurted out with a defiant look, smirking in return.

As if Zulema was not waiting for anything else but that moment, she launched on her, biting her in the hollow of her neck possessively while stroking her bare shoulders reverently with the other hand, creating invisible paths.  
Macarena made a silent cry, clinging desperately to Zulema so as not to fall ruinously to the ground.  
Unconsciously Macarena tensed her neck giving better access to Zulema. The other woman took advantage of that movement to suck and lick her wildly as if driven by an atavistic hunger, well aware of the signs that would come to form the next morning against Macarena's skin.  
  
Then, she left feather kisses on her way to the blonde's ear teasing her.  
There she stood panting, like a beast trying to catch her breath after an intense struggle.  
Macarena held her closer, positioning them in such a way as to be forehead to forehead.  
The gaze of one plunged into that of the other.  
  
_…It was a bad idea to think you were the one_  
_was such a bad idea 'cause now everything's wrong…_

"This is going to end badly, it's just a matter of time"  
Macarena smiled defeatedly in agreement while raising a hand to caress Zulema's face when the other woman prevented her by gripping her wrist.  
Zulema narrowed her gaze defensively then left without saying a word.  
As Macarena was about to follow her a loud bump of a door shuttering to the ground made them retrocede.  
Several cops made their way into the crowd aiming their guns at the people in the room.  
Finally, they handcuffed the women and took them out of the pub.  
During the journey to the prison, both women avoided making eye contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *That would be the song played in the background in the pub, it’s bad idea! of girl in red.  
> **It' a quote from the book Different Seasons by Stephen King.
> 
> So what do you think about this chapter? It developed very differently than I had imagined it initially. Warm hugs!


	6. A bitter return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer and more descriptive than usual. I felt that there was a need to devote more thought to the events in this chapter, hope you will not mind. I know that the upheaval in the plot is a bit of a gamble but I think it was necessary. I warn you that unfortunately, this will not be the last of the ‘heavy’ chapters but I can promise you that from next on there will be for a while diametrically opposite moments to ease the tension. Enjoy the reading!

"Our little twins finally reunited, what a delight! For a moment I thought I was able to instil a little common sense into your little maggot brains. I was wrong, evidently.  
I told you there would be repercussions but you didn’t want to listen..."  
Macarena stiffened hearing the words of the director.  
She was not ready to face reality just now. She no longer knew what to believe in but at the same time she had no other place to take refuge; her illusions had shattered before her eyes.

Zulema's sudden refusal the night before had left her puzzled, to say the least.  
She had risked everything for her, had followed her even though she had no idea where she would take her and despite all of that, Zulema at the end of the day had abandoned her, or she would have. Wouldn’t she?

Zulema had become her obsession after the revolt and now she could no longer deny it.  
She longed for her company and approval every moment of the day.  
Perhaps this unhealthy feeling of co-dependency had started long before, ever since she entered prison. Moreover, her choices in the past were clear proof of this. Maybe once she could tell herself that it wasn't excitement that she felt every time she approached her, but only the adrenaline due to the terror that Zulema instilled in everybody. 

But now? There was no more room for lies, there was only the crude and brutal reality of an uncertain future.  
Upon entering the prison, she had indissolubly bonded with her in a constant struggle. There was no victory or defeat. Both always ready to move back to allow the other to regain ground. Much more like a courtship than a real fight. And now what would be left if Zulema had effectively abandoned her? Would she be able to survive, would she be able to live a life without the sweet poison of that scorpion?  
After all, Zulema destroyed everything that she touched.  
Nothing good could ever come out of that woman.

Macarena's uncertainties were short-lived.  
‐--------  
"Now let's play a game. What do you say? Do you see this knife here? It is a hunting knife to disembowel the bodies of animals. It is exceptional for skin carving. Every deep wound that this knife will cause you will carry for the rest of your days. Let's start with Macarena, what do you say? "

He began to engrave the skin where the night before Zulema's fingers languidly had created invisible paths that now Macarena felt branded by the blade that undisturbed ran on her diaphanous skin.  
As she screamed in pain, she looked at Zulema staring at her impassively. She hadn't even had the decency to look away from that excruciating show of suffering.  
Her bored gaze stared at her almost with despise.  
Macarena would have liked to be stronger, to be able to endure that excruciating pain but she could not stop herself from crying, praying for the man to stop, begging Zulema to do something ... anything.

The torture lasted hours and if every now and then the man stopped to ask questions to Zulema she promptly would not respond except with jokes to annoy him, only worsening the situation of Macarena who suffered the results of his anger.  
Eventually, he left an exhausted Macarena one step away from unconsciousness and then went on to threaten Zulema directly with the knife to her throat.

The director was getting tired and his anger was making him gradually lose control.  
Zulema was openly winning that chess game as she made every move with an inflexible determination.  
He was well aware that Zulema had always been of an inhuman resistance, capable of supporting any mental manipulation and torture with unheard-of tenacity but seeing before his eyes the proof was unbelievable.  
After studying her file for a long time, the man had hoped to get to her as the previous director had done; through a person dear to her.

But Sandoval, ex-psychiatrist and prison doctor, was right.  
Zulema was a textbook psychopath unable to empathize.  
What she had felt for her daughter was pure maternal instinct, nothing more.

The director realized that Zulema had been manipulating Macarena for all those months and would continue to do so for as long as it would be useful for her.  
The only possibility the director had to win this war was to retire and establish a truce to be able to review the cards he had in his hand and the intentions behind Zulema’s actions.

He let them go.

\-----

As soon as he let them out Macarena capitulated to the ground unable to sustain herself in an upright position, leaving a pool of blood along her path.  
The guards, probably so far unaware of what was going on in that room from their shocked faces, let them be, reminding them to return to their cells as soon as possible.  
At that point, Zulema was about to help Macarena straighten up when she flinched away, hiding her face and closing herself in a tight ball.  
"Maca you have to stand up, we need to live now..."

Macarena continued to cry while emitting a bitter laugh full of despair.  
"Yours is not cynicism, yours is inhumanity. Did it arouse you to see me praying to die rather than endure even another moment of that torture? You are a monster, Zulema."  
Zulema’s eyes widened in two black pool then she glanced at Macarena with a ruthless look.  
Macarena thought she would kill her, she could see it in the way her body was stiffly bowed as if she was preparing to jump on her at any moment.

"The only fucking reason why you're still alive is that I didn't do anything. Do you think it was easy for me?! You don't have a fucking idea of what it means to be me. Always ready to put me on a pedestal in the last few months as if I were Mother Teresa and now you consider me the mentally ill painted by Barbie, the most perverse man who ever existed? If I could have taken my daughter's place or yours, I would have done it. But things aren't like that. Life is not made of heroic gestures able to save anybody from every problem as you have thought for all your privileged life. It's more difficult to live with the consequences of your choices than as a victim for a lifetime.  
If that son of a bitch had glimpsed the least failure in me he would have used you until the end of your days against me to get everything he wanted and what he did to you today would have been the least of your problems. And we both know how it would have ended; I would have gotten to the point where I couldn't stand you anymore and killed you. Nobody can ever come between me and my freedom, remember it. "  
She snorted.  
“...and then we both know that you would have been too weak to do what I did. Ever since you set foot in this hole, you have tried to become more and more equal to me. But you will never be because you’ll never understand what the fuck it means to have lived my life so far. "  
Zulema left without looking back while Macarena remained on the icy floor crying and bleeding.

After a few minutes, Rizos and Saray rushed escorted by the guards.  
Macarena did not let herself be touched and she didn't agree to be escorted to the nurse.  
With a strength that she did not think she had left she slumped against a wall to support herself up, then she dragged herself bleeding to the showers followed by her friends.

"I will kill her with my bare hands" exclaimed Rizos ready to chase Zulema while listening to the clatter of the water in the background. Saray promptly restrained her from doing so by taking her face in her hands searching for her gaze.  
"Now Macarena needs us. For Zulema there’s time, I promise you."

\----------

The days passed but Macarena could not face reality.  
She spent all her time alone in a dark closet staring at the wall.  
She stopped talking, working and she barely ate, only when Rizos insisted.  
She had become the ghost of Cruz Del Norte. She had become viewless but at the same time, everybody could sense her presence.

The guards had accompanied her after that fateful day to a cell of her own which she didn't have to share with anyone else.  
Everyone now seemed to pity her as if she were a shattered porcelain doll. Broken for life.  
Both the guards and her companions were trying to fix her cautiously. How naive of them to think they could do such a thing.  
She didn't care as long as they would all be walking on tiptoe without seeking a confrontation with her.

\----------

And here she was again, kneeling on the dusty floor of the dark closet while trying to control her breathing and the uncontrolled tremor that radiated throughout her body. She kept repeating herself in a whisper that she could do it, that she was stronger than everyone around her thought. 

But it was always the same.  
She would lift the sleeve of her uniform of a few inches to look at her scars and then she would begin to hyperventilate.  
Then hours had to pass before she could regain control of her body, or at least enough to be able to get up.  
She felt completely estranged from her body, the reality around her was fading and the days had become indistinguishable.  
Despite everything she kept imposing herself every day to do it, to overcome it.

She hardly remembered her dreams but when she did she would wake up screaming, waking up the entire prison. Nevertheless, everybody would remain silent listening to the screams that had awakened them with tacit commiseration.  
Macarena would always gasp wetting with her sweat the bed while trembling uncontrollably.  
She would always feel the need to touch her arms and back but she wouldn't. She knew after all that her dreams were not real.  
That the scars that were not in her dreams, were instead quite real and that they would mark her for life.

The only thing that had comforted her in those months was the awareness that the director had been murdered in his office the night after her release with Zulema.  
He was found the following day with his chest wide open and his heart in the hand with which the night before he had used to carve her skin.  
Now Palacios had replaced him as the new director of the prison because the committee had considered, following the revolt and the recent assassination, a precautionary measure to put in power someone more affable towards the various prisoners.

Macarena in the meantime had no doubt about who had been carrying out that premeditated murder.

\------

She didn't know why she was doing such a thing.  
But how could she, by the way? In the last months, she hadn't been able to do anything let alone thinking.  
Every energy was centred in an attempt to maintain control over her body and mind, preventing them from lashing out.  
Despite all, she had learned from Saray that Zulema in the last period had remained on the sidelines, spending as much time as possible in solitude and that the only moments when it was possible to see her was when she was in the library. 

So now here she stood at the entrance of the library, unable to step forward.  
Macarena didn't know why she wanted to confront her, she didn't know what she wanted to tell her. Only 'you ruined my life' reverberated in her mind.  
Then she saw her reading in a distant corner of the completely isolated library. The watchful gaze which had always characterized her was absent. She seemed distant and completely unconscious of the world around her.

She sat down in front of her trying to search for the words she wanted to say.  
Hours passed in silence, then Zulema lost her patience and she looked up from the book she was reading.  
"What do you want?”  
Macarena in answer, moved by unexpected courage, took off her uniform, remaining only in her tank top.  
Then, she took Zulema's hand tentatively bringing it against her scars which crossed her entire back from her left forearm to the right one.

Zulema faltered. She clenched her jaw and she closed her eyes emitting a deep sigh.  
When she opened them again she found Macarena's fragile gaze as she stared back at her scared, vulnerable, one step away from collapse.  
Zulema got up and then, she reverently covered each scar with her fingertips.  
In the end, she burst into tears like a child scratching her own skin.  
Perhaps Zulema also felt those scars, but not on her body. 

She had caressed them softly as if her only touch risked to reopen them. 

Because it was all her fault and she knew it.  
Because denying what she felt was no longer possible.  
Because after the revolt her walls had started to crumble and now, one by one, they were collapsing before her eyes.

She started trembling while sinking her fingernails deeper and deeper.  
"I know. I'm so sorry I didn't understand before"  
Macarena whispered while caressing her back, trying to soothe her.  
She realized that she wasn't the only one who had to bring that pain.  
Maybe she wasn't the only one who would bring those scars to life.

For the first time, Macarena managed to endure the awareness of it all but she didn’t dare to watch her scars, she felt already too much dizzy and she didn't want to pass out in front of Zulema.  
"Now I have to go"  
"Yeah, I know. See you later? " Zulema asked tentatively in a murmur with her face still hidden by the curtain of her hair.  
Macarena nodded taken by surprise, then she left as if she was in a hurry.

They could no longer go back to the way things once were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think? Why the director had been found with his heart on his hand? Why Macarena did what she did? How things are going to change from now on? This and much more in the next chapter. I know, it wasn't funny...Well, I'm already working on the next one so I hope to publish it as soon as possible.  
> Can't wait to see your comments about what you think :)


	7. Reconciliation

The days passed by but both continued not to speak if not strictly necessary.  
At least Macarena had gone back to the canteen for lunch and dinner. She would sit in front of Zulema in silence without meeting the other woman’s gaze.  
These moments had become the only opportunity of sociality that Macarena could bear. She would pass the rest of the day in the dusty closet that had become her refuge.  
  
They had nothing left to say to the other, both just needed the mutual closeness more than ever.  
Zulema never approached her but Macarena knew perfectly well that she did it only out of respect. She understood perfectly well how much Macarena at that moment needed her own space where she could feel safe.  
The relationship between the two had irreparably cracked and everything they had built so far had collapsed as if it was a paper castle; there was nothing left except ashes.  
  
Every time Macarena would approach her, she would see Zulema relax from her stiff posture cheering up for the pleasant company.  
But things did not always go smooth as silk, in fact, Macarena often would felt suffocated by the proximity of the other or assailed by a wave of violent anger and then she would run away leaving Zulema without saying a single word disappearing in the crowd of inmates who were lined up for their meal. Zulema would never comment on her sudden flights, she would just continue to eat her food as if nothing happened. On the other hand, Rizos and Saray didn’t dare to contest Macarena’s choices but they would always watch them in constant alert during every meal, ready to intervene in case something would happen between them.  
  
\------  
  
Then one night things changed.  
Macarena was unable to sleep because of the winter breeze that pierced the thin blanket of her camp bed.  
So, after having repeatedly turned over in bed she decided to exit her cell, taking advantage of the new directive that Palacios had restored that provided cells open even at night.  
She walked barefoot through the prison corridors watching her companions sleeping peacefully. At one point she stopped her walk by seeing Zulema sleeping stiffly like a dead body in her cot.  
Macarena approached her trying to climb her bunk bed without making a sound to reach her. When she arrived to the top, she was about to scream seeing suddenly Zulema's intent gaze staring back at her ponderingly.

Macarena took a deep breath to calm down and sat down on the edge of the bed. Then she slowly approached her as if in front of her there was a ferocious beast that at the first sign of danger could savage her.  
Arriving near her, she laid down beside her.

Zulema froze waiting for Macarena's next move to understand how to behave in that unusual situation.  
  
Minutes passed, perhaps hours, and finally, Maca gained the courage that had so far been lacking and neared her to hide her face in the hollow of the older woman's neck. After a short hesitation, Zulema placed a hand on Maca's hip, bringing her closer.  
  
In the end, they both fell asleep entangled in each other.  
  
\------  
  
The following nights were not all the same but those that seemed too long for Macarena she would pass them with Zulema falling asleep in her arms, no words were needed.  
  
Nevertheless, things changed when Zulema entered her cell once in the middle of the night.  
She set on the cold floor leaning against the wall to watch over her during the night.  
Macarena wanted her to join her in bed but she didn’t find the courage to ask it aloud. She was in some strange way flattered by the attentions that Zulema dedicated to her but perhaps deep down she wasn’t ready to face such an invasion of her personal space.  
However, before falling asleep Macarena asked her in a whisper if she could return.  
  
From that night Zulema would always make her way into her cell and Macarena would always find herself waiting for her arrival with bated breath.  
  
Maybe they had been the poison of the other at the beginning but now, they had become their mutual medicine.  
  
\------  
  
"I have to ask you a favour"  
  
This sentence drew Zulema's attention. She raised her back in alert and stared at her intently.  
  
"Could you help me take off my uniform?"  
  
Macarena asked in a whisper without meeting the other woman’s gaze.  
Zulema got up from her usual spot on the ground keeping an indecipherable look that gave nothing away.  
  
When she arrived in front of her, she waited for Macarena's instructions, uncertain on the turn that that request might take.  
  
"Can you help me to roll up my sleeve?"  
  
Zulema lifted her sleeve holding her wrist up gently.  
Macarena, on the other hand, was already breathing heavily but, not having to be the one to lift the sleeve helped a lot.  
She could bear this if it was Zulema doing it for her. She looked at the first visible scars branded on her skin.  
  
Fuck, it was too much.  
She blocked Zulema wrist with an iron grip while trying to calm down. She couldn't regain control over her body and mind that lashed out like tongues of fire.  
  
She could clearly feel her uncovered scars caressed by the gentle breeze of that night. If before she could hide them and pretend that they were not there now they were an undeniable reality.  
  
Oxygen could not reach her lungs; her heart was beating wildly.  
  
"Maca, look at me"  
  
Macarena looked up at her.  
They eyed each other for a long time then slowly Macarena managed to return to reality; the surrounding around her had stopped fading. She was returning to focus.  
After a while, she was able to calm her breath thank to the view of Zulema's chest lower rhythmically.  
On the other hand, her uncontrollable trembling didn’t seem to stop soon so Zulema took gently her wrist bringing it to her neck, putting Macarena's fingertips on her pulse point.  
Zulema's beat quickly calmed her, it was strangely fascinating.  
  
Finally, with immense willpower, Macarena took a deep breath and looked down again at her scarred arm. She stared at it for a while absorbed, as if what she had before her eyes was not her body but that of another being which did not belong to her.  
In the end, she lowered her sleeve as several tears continued to fall unperturbed.  
  
"Thanks, can we retry tomorrow?"  
  
\------  
  
Every evening they would try even though they often had to stop for Macarena’s panic attacks that came unexpected, sometimes much heavier than the first time. After a month of continuous attempts, Macarena came to the point of being able to look completely at both her arms and back without hyperventilating.  
She was very proud of her progress especially considering all the sacrifices she and Zulema had made to get to that point.  
  
The night in which Macarena succeeded completely to watch her body without shame was unreal. She met Zulema's gaze in the mirror in which she was watching herself, she smiled melancholy at her. She was grateful to her for having been there in the moment she most needed her. Zulema returned her smile then she softly kissed a scar on Macarena’s left shoulder.  
Both celebrated that evening sitting on the floor leaning against a wall, smoking silently a cigarette just as they used to do in the warehouse in those months long gone, before everything went to shit.  
  
\-------  
  
“I know you, Zulema, you are always planning some escape or murder. So what are you working on?! You can tell a long-time friend like me."  
  
Macarena winked at her with complicity giving her a playful shove.  
She returned to look out the warehouse window turning up the volume of the radio that was playing on the background.  
Zulema snorted staring at her intensely.  
  
"We are not friends and we never will be, blondie."  
  
"No?"  
  
Macarena looked back at her raising her eyebrows.  
Zulema shook her head in denial, smiling at her as she inadvertently bit her lower lip while looking at Macarena's lips with fascination.  
  
"What are you looking at?"  
  
"Nothing"  
  
Macarena at the answer jiggled and then seductively approached Zulema, sitting on her lap.  
She crossed her arms behind Zulema's neck letting her hair caress Zulema's bare shoulders.  
  
_I fell for you, you like me too_

 _Let's get it on check one, two *_  
  
"Little bird you should move away or you will end up being swallowed in a single bite"  
Zulema murmured against her skin warningly.  
Macarena in response hugged her, sinking her nails into Zulema's back, confessing hotly against the woman’s ear.  
  
"You should know by now that I am like a moth to the flame"  
  
Zulema at that pushed her forward making her lie down on the dusty floor in such a way as to regain control.  
  
_You got your eyeliner, long hair_  
  
_Walking around like you don’t care *_

Zulema inhaled deeply Macarena's scent brushing her neck with her nose.  
  
_Is it wrong? Is it wrong?_  
  
_If it is I don't want to be right *_  
  
Macarena languidly sighed exhaling a puff of air then she researched Zulema’s lips savouring them with ferocity, trying to appease an atavistic hunger.  
Zulema immediately responded with equal ferocity trying to get the better of her biting her lower lip making her bleed.

Macarena suddenly kicked her in the spleen making her lose balance. Then she climbed on top of her. 

Before Zulema could react, Macarena took off both her uniform and tank top remaining shirtless. She watched her provocatively as she stroked her chest and breast moving her pelvis in rhythm with the music, rubbing her sex with that of the other woman. At that Zulema grabbed her basin to prevent her from continuing that sweet torture while panting like a caged animal. Macarena approached her standing a few inches from her face and then whispered on her lips.  
  
"This time you lost, Zulema."  
  
With a sudden gesture, Macarena got to her feet getting quickly dressed and left a furious Zulema on the cold floor before she could take her revenge.  
She knew that Zulema would make her pay dearly that affront sooner or later, but that wait to Macarena’s ears sounded like the sweetest of promises.  
  
\-------  
  
Despite Macarena's great success in accepting her new condition also thanks to Zulema’s help, they continued not to speak if not strictly necessary to the other. Both in the last month had established new boundaries that could help them towards a progressive reconciliation.  
Nevertheless, those same red streaks that they had tacitly established now seemed uncrossable. There was a time when every limit was nothing but an incentive to destroy it while now both were too afraid to lose what they had left to consider overcoming their boundaries.  
  
Macarena crossed the border one evening when she entered the laundry room where Zulema was still finishing her shift, making her a proposal to which Zulema could have never refused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I made it quite explicit, in any case, the scene with Is it Wrong* of Lana Del Rey in the background was a flashback. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. What do you think of the progressive rapprochement of the two? I must confess that the part immediately following their last dialogue should have been in this chapter but I preferred to postpone it so that I could spend more time on it.  
> If you want to contact me for anything you can find me on tumblr at @Arobininthefog. Warm hugs!


	8. The calm before the storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on the chapters will come out once a week, I hope to be able to publish one every Wednesday.  
> Hope you don't mind but I can't do differently. Enjoy the reading!

“Are you ready?” 

Zulema smirked in return.

“Whenever you are, rubia”

Zulema whistled attracting the attention of a guard who was walking in the courtyard. 

"Pablito!! How long has it been since we've had a chat?" 

The guard turned abruptly, stepping back instinctively. He frowned then he crossed his arms defensively.

"Whatever you are trying to achieve, today is not the day!"

Zulema approached him predatory, raising her arms in a friendly sign making an amused grimace.

"What's going on? You know you can tell me everything, honey." 

In the meantime, Macarena had approached the guard from behind and had slipped a bunch of keys from his strap without being seen.

"Prisoner, either stop it immediately or I’ll take you to isolation and then you will never see the light of day again in your whole life. ¿Lo tienes?"

“Meridiano, patrón.”

Zulema with her hands in her pockets left the courtyard, whistling happily.  
\------------

Zulema was in the dark.  
She could not see anything around her.  
She tried to move but she could not, she was immobilized.  
Suddenly, several hands grabbed her, making every attempt to free herself an opportunity to palpate and undress her.  
She writhed desperately screaming until she had no more energy and let herself go.  
The hands moved away.  
She heard the sound of distant footsteps, someone was approaching.  
From the cadence of the steps, it seemed to be a man.  
Silence and then someone breathed hotly on her neck.

"Well, well, well. Was it so difficult to give up? If you had been a little less selfish in your miserable life you could have saved your daughter and your loved ones. But no, Zulema Zahir must always make scorched earth wherever she goes, doesn’t she?"

A beam of light suddenly illuminated the cell where Zulema was located. She had to blink several times to adjust her sight to the headlights.  
She was kneeling naked on the floor while Sandoval dressed in a suit and tie smiled in the mirror perversely at her from behind.  
He raised his arms and Zulema with him. Very thin threads stretched from the fingers of the man to the limbs of Zulema like a puppeteer with his puppet.  
With each movement of the man’s fingers, the rigid body of Zulema followed.  
She would have liked to scream, she would have liked to wriggle and bite off the aorta of the psychopath behind her but she didn’t.  
She remained motionless like a doll, staring at her own reflection apathetically.  
With a closer look, she noted that her naked body seemed unnatural, similar to that of a porcelain doll. She approached two fingers to her unusually smooth, cold and stiff cheek.

Crack. 

Zulema's face splintered and a fragment hit the ground releasing a noise similar to that of a glass or a pot breaking on the ground. 

She stared into the mirror and realized that she was empty inside.

\---------

"It's just a nightmare Zule-"

The older woman suddenly woke up throwing herself against the person who was touching her shoulder to choke her.  
As soon as she realized that it was Macarena she let her go backing away, slamming against the opposite wall like an animal frightened by a sudden noise.  
Macarena also instinctively retreated by getting out of bed, putting as much distance as possible between her and the older woman.

"Sorry, I just thought... Are you okay?"

"¡No me toques!"

"I'm not touching you, see?"

Macarena frightened raised her arms in front of her in surrender.

"Now it's better if I go so you can...You know-" Macarena left the cell without finishing her statement.

Zulema snorted at herself. She had ruined everything. Just now that things seemed to have returned to a minimum stable between the two.  
Now that Maca seemed to feel a little safer in her presence and to have accepted what had happened to her.

Puta Barbie de mierda. 

Even when he was dead, he had to continue to torment her. That wasn’t fucking fair. 

\-------------

They were running as fast as they could, although they felt their heart racing. The so familiar corridors suddenly seemed to have become a labyrinth with no escape route to Macarena. Zulema who ran in front of her instead seemed to have no doubt where to turn. Eventually, they came to a door that Zulema after several curses managed to open with the right key. They entered the room barring the door with a desk nearby. They went up the long stairs and finally reached the top. 

Both of them exhaled a deep sigh of relief.

They had reached a watchtower. There was no one on the lookout. 

Both burst out laughing, watching the other with a conspiratorial look as they caught their breath leaning against a wall.

"I’m getting too old for this bullshit" 

Zulema blurted out clutching her chest for dear life.

"Oh shut up! It's funny, isn't it?"

Zulema did not reply as she was abruptly distracted by the landscape that appeared before her eyes.  
Her mouth formed a big O from wonder while her eyes seemed to shine on their own.  
Suddenly, she screamed out loud in what seemed more like a roar Macarena was used to see when she was a child in the animal documentaries. 

It was mesmerizing the way her body tended upward and her canines shone in the sunlight.  
She was made of violent and free beauty. 

Even before realizing it, Macarena was screaming with her in unison. Something was liberating about hearing their screams hovering in the air.  
At that moment, both hoped that the echo of their cries could overcome those walls and those gates to be able to hover in the air and escape from that prison. 

Above all in one single voice, free forever.

For a moment shorter than the beat of a butterfly's wing their eyes sank into each other making it impossible to distinguish where one started and where the other ended.

Then reality took over again.  
The door below opened wide in a loud bump and several guards led by Palacios reached them.

"Have you two finished your show?"

\-------

Zulema got out of bed after calming her breath to reach Macarena who was walking worried in circles in the corridor outside their cell.  
Seeing that Zulema had reached her, she stopped and stared at her intensely for several seconds.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, it was nothing"

Macarena raised her eyebrows but did not dare to fight, knowing that this was already a battle lost at the start. She started to shake her head crying out.

"Talk to me!" 

Zulema narrowed her eyes answering her with hatred.

"What do you want to hear?"

"Something, anything! I'm tired of having to chase you every time to understand what goes on in your head. If you want things to work between us you need to meet me halfway. We can't continue forever with this back and forth. Otherwise, it will end badly and you know that. "

Zulema tinned her lips inhaling deeply with her nose. Then she sighed and approached her.

"Thank you for waking me up"

She kissed imperceptibly her left cheek so quickly that for a moment Macarena thought she had imagined it. Then she entered their cell. Macarena stared at her dreamily while touching her left cheek.

\----------

Summer was coming to an end and Zulema felt the awareness that flowers would soon wither with the arrival of autumn and so also everything between her and Macarena in those few months would with her transfer. 

She looked around in what had now become the only home she ever had.  
The warehouse was lit by the moonlight while Macarena slept on the floor between the blankets they had stolen from the laundry last week.  
She looked so peaceful while she slept. The usual frown and narrowed lips that characterized her were absent in her face now.  
Occasionally she would make small sounds similar to those of a squirrel that made her sound ridiculous.  
Zulema often listened to them for hours pleased. Then she would ridicule them the following morning until Macarena's face would turn red as a beep.

She would have liked to take Macarena away with her, it wasn't fair that she was the only one who had to leave that place, wasn’t it?  
It seemed the least, after all, thinking about what the blonde had done to her in the past.  
But she couldn’t. Part of her knew that it would not be right to make Macarena sink with her, she didn’t deserve it. 

She went to Macarena and pulled a strand of hair away from her face. Then she retraced her features with her forefinger careful not to wake her up. She paused on her lips mesmerized. Suddenly she snapped back feeling Macarena's breath caressing her skin. 

That sudden snap backwards woke Macarena who immediately looked alarmed around.

"You were trying to kill me" 

It was not a question.

"Yes"  
"Why?"  
"Why not."

Macarena pondered her then smiled mischievously seeing the terrified face of Zulema.

"Then do it."

Macarena took Zulema's hand and carried it around her neck mimicking the words just said.

"Stop provoking me! You have taken this bad habit of provoking me every moment convinced that you are safe but you are not, I can assure you-"

"Then prove it" 

"As you wish”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't mind my choice to make the story so intertwined where the pieces of the puzzle go together little by little. If you have any doubts about the temporal order of the scenes in this chapter or in the previous ones, do not hesitate to ask.  
> Thank you all for every feedback, warm hugs!


	9. Painful Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warmly invite you to resume the previous chapters as this story being very intertwined, full of flashbacks and flashforwards, could be incomprehensible if you don't have all the fresh scenes happened in your mind.
> 
> I know that it could be annoying for many but to me, it is fascinating the idea, very present in El Oasis, that in the end, nothing is to be taken for granted and every present certainty can be reversed with a scene of the past. I hope you don't mind it too much and for any doubt on the timeline of the story do not hesitate to write to me.  
> Maybe when I finish the story I will republish the work with the right time sequences for completeness, I will see. This chapter is particularly long because it is the one I'm most fond of but above all to apologize since I haven't published a chapter for centuries. Enjoy the reading!

It should have just scared her, that's all. 

Macarena in the last period did nothing but put her on the corner and provoke her. 

Perhaps this once would have amused her but in the last period, she found it strangely destabilizing. 

It was about re-establishing boundaries for the good of both. Wasn't it?

"As you wish"

She grabbed her by the neck and pushed her against the wall. It would have been enough for Zulema to see her wounded fawn eyes begging her to stop and she would have known that Macarena had understood the lesson. 

However, what Zulema saw were the eyes of a ravenous tiger who was waiting for nothing more than an excuse to attack. 

A good punch hit her in the stomach which made her fall to the ground, moaning breathlessly.

  
"Puta"

She spat blood on the floor while trying to get up.

Her head was pounding violently and the adrenaline had started to circulate in her veins at full speed. 

From that moment she lost control. 

Pure survival instincts prevailed. 

That's what made Zulema attack. The rest was so rash that both could no longer tell where one attack started and where the other counterattack began. 

What they both felt was a profound sense of desolation when they both laid on the cold floor side by side, watching their pools of blood expand to become one. Macarena had a deep bite to her collarbone that Zulema didn't even remember giving her. Macarena eyes were starting to blur and her breathing to calm down.

Was she dying? Zulema let out a gurgle similar to that of an injured beast drowning in its blood. As she tried to approach her with a trembling hand she blinked twice then she lost consciousness.

\-----------

When they awoke they were both in the prison infirmary in serious condition.

In their days of stay, they didn't acknowledge the other presence. 

Both were too busy licking their own wounds after that fateful fight, lost in their thoughts.

Zulema always tried to keep track of time, hoping that, by prolonging her stay in the infirmary, she would avoid her imminent transfer. But even her usual optimism was abandoning her. That new director would not turn a blind eye to her, let alone to Macarena. Zulema could not allow him to harm her, as long ago he promised them he would.

On the other hand, Macarena no longer knew what to think. Ever since she and Zulema had become inseparable in those few months, she thought she was safe in some way. How stupid of her to think that a scorpion would stop sting, it was in its nature to do so.

She could not explain it but the more time she spent with Zulema the more she wanted to go beyond the limit. It was as if so far Zulema had always been a magnet that had attracted her and that, by rejecting her, Macarena had been able to partly keep her distance and avoid collapse. But now? She had reached the point where she unconsciously sought a clash. She sought the brutal confrontation that had always characterized all their interactions. It was like an addiction, a fatal one. 

When they were discharged they returned to talk to each other as if nothing had ever happened. It's no wonder both didn't even consider leaving the other. Theirs was like a tacit marriage contract.

That evening they were one step away from killing the other while now, sitting on their usual worn desk watching the moonlight from the window of the abandoned warehouse, they were debating over all the families who, on returning from their holidays, would find traffic the following day on the highway like an old couple, talking about nothing to occupy their time.

Their train of thoughts was interrupted by an announcement from the radio host.

_And now, finished the weather and traffic forecasts, we inform our kind listeners that tomorrow's evening will be dedicated to slow and passional music. So, I recommend you all to stay in line with your partner. Just for tomorrow!_

"This is bullshit!"

"Oh come on Zulema, I'm sure that there is some passionate and loving propensity that you have always kept hidden from the whole world. Now it's time to show it!" 

Macarena gestured to emphasize what she was saying while biting her upper lip to avoid bursting out laughing.

Zulema looked away with a bitter grin, then she returned her gaze to Macarena with a serious look.

"I didn't mean to kill you that evening"

Macarena gulped then she looked away to stare at a strand of blond hair she was playing with.

"I know, I was awake when you-"

"I don't want to leave"

"¿Qué?"

Zulema did not reply, clinging her legs to her chest defensively as she gazed absently at the moon.

"This is the only home I've ever had Maca," she whispered weakly like an unspeakable confession, biting her lower lip and shaking her head in a vain attempt to recompose herself.

“Why so melodramatic? We still have all the time in the world to spend in this hell!"

"If I were to leave, would you miss me?"

Zulema suddenly turned her gaze to stare back at her with an accusing look.

Macarena laughed shaking her head in disbelief.

  
“You won't go away from this dump without me, you bastard! I can assure you!"

  
"Is it a promise?"

Macarena nodded solemnly.

Zulema genuinely smiled back at her.

\---------

From that fateful night after Zulema's nightmare and that almost stolen kiss, Macarena struggled to remain lucid in her presence. That gesture so delicate and unusual, like the caress of a rose, had also left thorns in Macarena's left cheek. Now she felt marked by that gentleness, poisoned in every fibre of her being.

That kiss also seemed to influence Zulema, who seemed torn between being proud or terrified by its implications. 

They weren't exactly a declared couple now but they spent every moment together like they did before Zulema transfer and did not hide the mutual interest and affection they both felt for each other. 

Every now and then Macarena, during yoga classes or boring socialization moments in which both were forced to participate, would look away from Zulema's rather explicit faces which did not hide her profound disdain, refraining herself from bursting out laughing. 

Then she would mimic obscene words back at Zulema, forcing _her_ to look away.

Moreover, it had become a habit for Macarena to feel enclosed by Zulema's hand on her shoulder in everyday moments, capable of passing unnoticed among most of their cellmates, but that each time took Macarena unawares. She would initially stiffen and then she would move closer to Zulema's touch imperceptibly. 

They were small gestures that were taking more and more space in their everyday life, like the habit to hug Zulema during the night, preventing her cellmate from having nightmares.

On the other hand, when they were alone, they both seemed much more attentive to every single gesture. In fact, both avoided with great care to talk about any topic that could cause any disagreement between the two. 

The truth was that they both had inevitably acknowledged the mutual dependence on the other that was both a blessing and source of suffering.

\----------

After months and months, they had returned to the abandoned warehouse. The last time they had been in there was the night before Zulema's transfer. 

There had also been difficult times in that place but both there had shared the happiest moments of their life in prison and although that place now appeared to both as a deserted place it was a balm for their recent wounds. They had been lucky that fateful night when they had almost killed each other to be found in time by Rizos and Saray who had immediately taken them to the infirmary. 

Despite everything that had happened in the past, that place had remained hidden from the world, forgotten by everyone except them.

They watched the floor of the warehouse, stained with their drained blood, surrounded by flies. 

They joined each other hands and then they started tidying up the place.

\----------

It seemed like a day like any other, but it was not.

Macarena was wandering through the crowded corridors when she was interrupted by a guard who appeared authoritatively in front of her.

"Ferreiro follow me, there is a visit for you"

"That's impossible!" Macarena grinned amusedly back at her.

The guard puffed away annoyed.

"Hurry up, I haven't all day"

\-------

When Macarena sat down after years in front of her brother she felt like she was facing a stranger. 

It chilled her the awareness that few years were enough to make her brother look like a stranger to her. On the other hand, he did not seem troubled to see her after all that time. He smiled at her sweetly as he always had and for this reason, Macarena made an effort to do the same.

"You look good!"

Macarena forcibly smiled back frowning in confusion.

"You too! To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"A few weeks ago my daughter was born and I know I promised you that I would not come again, that I would go on with my life but you are part of my family and I wanted to inform you personally about recent events."

Macarena smiled broadly at him, grabbing his hand in an attempt to ground herself after the happy news.

"That's so amazing! I'm so happy for you!"

Macarena caught a glimpse of Zulema passing through the corridor and smiled openly at her, she couldn't wait to tell her. Zulema smirked knowingly in return beckoning her to continue her conversation with her brother while leaning against the wall.

However, when Macarena met again her brother's gaze, it was dark and grim.

"Are you two friends now?" 

The acidity and tension in his voice were palpable.

"It's complicated"

"Oh, I'm sure of that. Do I have to make you remember what she did to you and our family?!"

Macarena looked away, exhaling a deep sigh.

"What, Macarena? Has she become a little lamb now or has this prison changed you to the point where you no longer understands the difference between beasts and humans?"

"How dare you?!"

Macarena jumped up but his brother was faster and grabbed her wrist and then lifted her sleeve, revealing her scars.

"What are these?! It was she?"

Macarena began to hyperventilate, the sight was clouding.

The only thing that kept her grounded was the vague noise of someone hitting the glass on her right trying to get her attention.

"No, it was just-"

Tears were now flowing uncontrollably over her face while her hands were shaking visibly.

"It was her, I can read it in your eyes! You've always been a bad liar, Macarena. If you are too stupid to have a minimum of preservation instincts at least stay away from that woman out of respect for all those people who fought against her for you, some losing their lives! Prison has irreparably compromised you, now I can see it. You are no longer able to distinguish good from evil, you are one of them now. You have ruined my life. It is your fault that I have lost everything that was dearest to me in this world. But I forgive you and I'd do it again because I would do everything for my family. Now? I don't know who I have in front of me but certainly not my little sister I grew up with."

He left without giving her one last look, his thoughts clouded by the death of his father, mother and daughter. The irreparably damaged hand trembled uncontrollably at the memory of all he had to endure.

Macarena felt like stunned in the sternum. Everything seemed to resurface with unheard-of power.

A wave of anger towards herself, an atavistic hatred for her weakness and inability to save the people close to her, invaded her.

She ran out regardless of all the screams behind her.

\---------

She ran for a long time until she had no more air in her lungs, regardless of where she was. She entered the showers next to her, barring the door behind her.

The adrenaline was abandoning her and with it the forces that had so far kept her from falling to the ground.

She fell ruinously against the fences that divided the showers and then opened the icy water in an attempt to remain conscious.

As she stood there trembling, trying to regain control over her body and to push away the turmoil of emotions that had invaded her, she caught sight of an iron wire hidden under a bench.

She grabbed it fascinated with trembling hands as she passed it absently on her left wrist. Just as she was about to sink it on her skin she was interrupted by someone trying to open the door that she had previously barred.

Silence.

"Maca, are you here?"

Macarena did not respond, sinking the wire in her arm in an attempt to muffle the emotional pain she felt with the physical one, much more bearable.

"If you don't want to talk to me or see me any more it's fine. I just need to know that you're going to be okay"

Macarena let out a dull scream as if the pain she was experiencing could not come out to the surface. She grabbed her throat instinctively, trying to take deep breaths because she was running out of oxygen.

The wire fell from her hand and struck the wet floor, making a distinct metallic noise.

"Maca!!"

There was a sudden punch against the door. A bang, then the hinges fell ruinously to the ground.

Zulema ran to meet her, her troubled and manic gaze desperately searching for Macarena's eyes.

She grabbed her left wrist gently, trying to stop the copious bleeding.

"Can you hear me?"

Maca didn't answer, she wasn't able to.

Yes, she could hear her. But distant. As if she had just abandoned her body and was now far from everything and everyone. Like she was floating in an ocean.

Zulema's voice was muffled to the point of hearing it as a distant echo. Her voice suddenly seemed to have lost all logical connection as if she had suddenly started to speak a completely unknown language. 

No words could reach Macarena now.

She felt gripped bridle style on the floor by Zulema who cradled her like a baby under the shower that was running icy water.

Zulema tried to take her face and seek her gaze, to find a connection with which to communicate but Macarena seemed unable to find hers.

Her eyes seemed as absent as those of a sleepwalker.

Zulema held her close and then started to caress her hair in a delicate and continuous gesture.

She began to whisper to her every lullaby she knew with how much more sweetness she was able to master though shocked and terrified.

After several minutes Macarena seemed to resume the use of her body. She started looking around to find out where she was, trying to put the puzzle pieces back together.

She began to cry and scream and then repeatedly hit and scratch Zulema who did not reciprocate the violence nor tried to stop it, accepting everything that Maca had to give to her at the moment.

Macarena eventually seized with exhaustion. She let herself fall on Zulema, hiding her face in the hollow of Zulema's neck, an instinctive gesture to hide from reality.

They stayed that way until Macarena calmed down enough to resume breathing in a controlled way.

"I can't apologize for what I've done."

"I don't expect you to."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, it was quite the heavy chapter but I thought it was necessary with all they had been through.  
> The next ones will be lighter from now on, I promise.  
> Let's say that the peak has been reached and that from now on it will all be downhill or uphill. Points of view I suppose.
> 
> Every single feedback means the world to me so please don't hesitate to let me know what you think in the comments.  
> Thank you!


	10. Sinking in your skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was difficult for me to write this chapter. Sorry for the wait, enjoy the reading!

  
Zulema was in the warehouse, looking out of the window at the rain in front of her while droplets of water filtered inside from the partially destroyed roof. The sound of the rain was relaxing, purifying and, at that precise moment, perfectly in tune with her emotions. A heavy sigh left her lungs as if the mere activity of breathing cost her a great deal of effort.

"Are you still awake?"  
Macarena's unmistakable voice filled the room along with the sound of her footsteps cautiously approaching.  
"Where were you?"  
"Don't tell me you're the kind of jealous girlfriend!"  
Macarena's playful tone clashed with Zulema's mournful one.   
Something bad was about to happen.

"Macarena Ferreiro, the new Godmother! Selling drugs across the prison has become your new way of life, what an unexpected turn of events!"  
Zulema spelled out each syllable moving her hands theatrically to emphasize the absurdity of it all.  
"I don't do it anymore"  
Macarena's answer came out in a puff of air.  
"And since when, mmh?!" Zulema finally turned to look at her, her piercing gaze scrutinizing her, trying to catch the glimpse of a lie behind the blonde's eyes.  
"Since this evening. I have all the money I need-"  
"And what exactly do you need them for?"

Silence.

"I need to get out of here, Zulema."  
"To. Go. Where?!"  
The mocking tone of Zulema cracked, revealing a subtle panic that until now the older woman had tried to keep at bay scratching the already worn table with her nails and nervously kicking the wood with her right leg.  
"Far from here"  
The clenched fists on the blonde's hips, the fixed gaze and the pursed lips were out of tune with the plea that Zulema glimpsed behind her eyes.  
The brunette snorted loudly, looking back at the window.  
"When?"   
Zulema's question, albeit whispered in a hiss, pervaded the room reverberating in the walls in all its power. How long was there before their paths would forever be divided?  
"In a few hours"  
Zulema laughed loudly pinching her nose as she shook her head in complete denial. A thin tear lined her face but quickly was pulled away with a distracted hand gesture as if it was an annoying and unwelcome insect flying by.  
Macarena dared not take a step forward; perhaps for fear of collapsing in front of Zulema or perhaps because she knew deep down that she had screwed everything up. What had she thought in this month, that her departing would have no consequences? The truth was that she didn't think, she didn't want to. 

And now it was too late to turn back.

\------------

It had been a month since Zulema and Macarena had last spoken. After they both got out of the showers, they both took different paths and from that moment they hardly exchanged fugitive glances stolen in the middle of a crowd.

It seemed as though their relationship had not only come to a collision but even risked a merger. It was as if the boundaries of their individualities had thinned to the point that they could shatter like countless crystals at the slightest touch. They both needed distance before everything would slip out of their control. Both needed the independence that the other had deprived them so far.

All of this made Zulema go mad indeed.   
Not only she had watched yet another part of herself being taken away from her until it dissolved into the distance, but Zulema had always lived for her freedom and from the riot, she could no longer do it. She was left to mourn in the cage she had forged, trapped by herself.  
Part of her was relieved when she chose to get away from Macarena. Perhaps she was convinced that she would finally return to fight alone without worries for her freedom; the sly gaze projected forward and the torso bent, ready to attack everything that separated her from the goal.

But perhaps certain wounds cannot heal and one cannot return to the starting point. The past had changed her and she was no longer able to accept this part of herself that was taking more and more power day by day, so different from the person who had fought against the whole world from her earliest childhood. She couldn't be that person anymore although she desired it with all her might.

For this reason, when she now saw Macarena smiling carefree to the others as she had seen her do only with her, illuminated by the moon among the dusty remains of that warehouse, she felt betrayed. How could she go on like nothing ever happened? Why wasn't she suffering like she was?  
Zulema in those moments wanted to throw herself at her and forcibly remove that sweet smile, making her feel what she was feeling. She wanted to be seen and heard by Macarena as she was used to but something prevented her from interventing; it blocked her and forced her to watch it all in silence.

It was a slow agonizing death and each day it got darker and darker.  
The absence of the other was engulfing her existence.

\------------

Macarena wanted to leave.   
For perhaps the first time in years since she was incarcerated, she wanted to run away.  
Suddenly, the memories of her previous life outside those walls were returning with unprecedented power attracting her like bees to flowers.

Now everything was clear to her. She felt like she had reborn with the awareness of how much prison had degraded and poisoned her so far.  
She wanted to forget everything since she had set foot inside these walls and erase finally this chapter of her life from her memories. Maybe if she would do that, the pain of her past choices would become bearable, maybe she could become a better person.   
She would finally learn to cook. She would have a spacious apartment, brats to look after and take to school. Her biggest dilemma would be what dress to wear the following day. Yes, Macarena could definitely see herself in such a life with a handsome hubby in a comforting nest. 

This is why from that meeting with her brother Macarena had started selling drugs, expanding her circle of clients to have the monopoly on the whole prison.  
Of course, that money would help her escape, but at the same time, they helped her not to think. She couldn't stand the silence anymore.   
She was craving the noise to distract any thoughts that would carry her back to Zulema.  
She passed almost every night sleepless, regarding every detail of her escape.  
She was getting increasingly obsessed with the need to leave everything behind. 

A few days and everything would become nothing but a distant and blurred nightmare.

\----------

There were a few hours left and Macarena's plan would come into operation. The gears of her plan she had cleverly positioned were starting to move.  
But something was distracting her; the distinct bitter taste that the meeting with Zulema had left in her. A magnetic force was clouding her common sense instigating her to say a final goodbye.  
With heavy feet and bated breath, she entered the cell of what was once her archenemy.

As she entered she saw Zulema lost in thoughts passing absently a dagger in her hands, leaning against the wall behind her.   
Macarena swallowed loudly.  
"Is it my farewell gift, a dagger stuck in the spleen?"  
Zulema shrugged amused by the idea and then she sincerely replied without looking up;   
"I haven't decided yet"

The silence became heavy between the two and the tension could be cut with a knife. Eventually, Macarena found the courage and lied down next to Zulema on the cot.  
"Where are the others?"  
"They thought it was a great night to go camping in some closet. Who am I to judge?"  
Zulema shrugged solemnly as Macarena smiled genuinely.  
"You must have scared the shit out of them, didn't you?"

Zulema with a brusque gesture brought Macarena's hand around her waist to be embraced and turned away lying down so as not to have to face the blonde anymore while enjoying these last few moments.  
After a while, Macarena broke the pleasant silence that enveloped them, suddenly seized by the need to say all the things she had never said to her, well aware of having run out of time.  
"I will always be grateful to you. Without you, I would not be the person I am now-"  
"And what a person!"  
Macarena felt Zulema's laughter at her own joke in the palm of her hand that was holding her firmly as the woman used to like. Something warm and familiar spread into her chest at the thought.  
"Will you miss me?"   
"Let's see! Will I miss not being able to sleep because of your annoying squeak, having my own toothbrush without you stealing it from me every morning, eating a fucking chocolate pudding without it being punctually snatched from my tray-"   
"Oh shut up! You always say you don't want it!"  
Macarena jumped on Zulema and both of them wriggled out laughing playfully shoving the other away. Zulema kissed her with a loud muaaa to distract her so she could regain a sitting position. Macarena looked at her intently stopping what she was doing and then kissed her back for a long time, squeezing her as if she were afraid she might dissolve at any given moment. 

Zulema had a unique smell; musky with a wild note which at the same time was balanced by a harmonious sweet scent which ended up blending with her sweat which strangely reminded Macarena of the sea. It was intoxicating like every part of Zulema and she wanted to relish every last second of it.  
Zulema pushed her away against the mattress and then straddled her, stretching like a cat over her, making her canines shine against the light of the outside.   
"We never had sex"  
She hotly murmured against Macarena's neck making goosebumps appear all over the blonde's skin.  
"Didn't we?"  
Zulema laughed derisively.   
"I think I would remember it, don't you?"   
Macarena's dilated eyes rushed all over the place scanning her environment frantically while her lower lip trembled uncontrollably unable to meet the other woman's gaze. 

She wanted to escape but at the same time to stay.   
A precarious balance destined to perish.   
Once again she was faced with her contradictory desires, unable to decide where the tip of the balance would halt and take her to. 

She took a deep breath and then she placed one hand on Zulema's cheek. She tenderly caressed with her thumb the woman cheekbone. 

Macarena felt a shiver ran down her spine when Zulema in response reverently lifted her tank top without living her gaze.   
Zulema's pitch hair that now draped her face, caressed the blonde breasts leaving a trace in her skin soft as silk whilst her face descended to leave a faint kiss on the woman right hip that lingered after her departure.   
Her hand slipped softly on the blonde's abdomen that now was rising frantically. She framed with ghostly fingers the features of the woman under her like she was discovering it for the first time inch by inch.   
Macarena could feel herself crack at every tender touch; every splinter stabbing her. She planted her nails on Zulema's shoulders trying to suffocate that uncomfortable sensation with a more physical one.   
Like a roar, the caress sank under the blonde's skin reverberating in every fibre of her being. Fragments and an unknown feeling ran through her veins carving and burning her from the inside.   
She couldn't name it but it was neither excitement nor affection she was feeling. It was something even more powerful that gave her a deep sense of belonging, something bold and fragile at the same time.   
Tears full of suffering and regret finally flowed free, purifying.   
Zulema's name flew out of Macarena's trembling lips as she reached out for more contact. That breath of voice echoed the same word that Macarena said pleadingly after the revolt to Zulema when both were in isolation separated only by a thin wall.  
Macarena arched at the touch of Zulema's finger clearing the path of tears on her face.   
They both forgave each other in that precise moment for all the choices made in the past, they let everything dissolve in the cold air of the cell. 

There were only them now, without a past or a future, attracted by the mutual heat of their feverish bodies, drawn by the skin of the other with an atavistic and unbridgeable hunger. Macarena struggled to raise her tired eyelids to seek Zulema's gaze. The woman also had a streaked face while her eyes vibrated with overwhelming emotions. In the light of Zulema's eyes, Macarena seemed to glimpse the woman's soul and wondered if she too was glimpsing hers. Intimidated by that nearness she hid her face in the hollow of Zulema's neck, clinging to her while forming a hickey on the older woman's neck trying to ground herself to the present.

Zulema took one of her nipples in her mouth sucking on it for a while then she released it with a playful lick. In the meantime, she caressed one of the blonde thighs cautiously ascending sensing the blonde's legs spreading in an invitation to continue.   
Zulema lowered her pants then she circled her clit making Macarena gasp.  
From that point, things escalated quickly.   
A warmth from Macarena's centre expanded all over her body, an electrifying sensation pervaded her making her muscles contract. Macarena arched at every touch emitting languid sighs. Her breath from frantic progressively evened. She tried to open her eyes and move but her limbs had given away. Before she realized she had fallen asleep in the older woman's arms.

\-----------  
Macarena awoke with Zulema's feather kisses on her scars.   
She smiled serenely feeling her skin still full of the brunette and the air around them still impregnated with their scent   
"Sleeping beauty, as much as I selfishly would like to have you still here warming my humble bed, I'm afraid it's time to go, isn't it?"  
Macarena stiffened squinting and sinking her nails into her palms. She tried in vain to hold back her tears as a deep cry rose within her which she refused to give a voice.  
"I can't!" She trembled, shaking her head.  
"Of course you can! Get your ass up and move on before I decide to stab you as you gently suggested before."

\--------------

Macarena took a few steps out of Zulema's cell. She leaned against the wall as if her life depended on it clutching and twisting her uniform.   
She took deep breaths.   
In. Out. In. Out.   
What would await her outside prison if she will always have to live as a fugitive? If the only person she wanted to spend her life with was locked up here what was the sense of this evasion?  
Her heart ached at the mere thought of such a miserable life.

There was only one way out.

"You'll come away with me. We will head out of the main door together should it be the last thing we do!"  
"And your plan?"  
"My plan sucked. So, are you in?"  
Zulema smiled tilting her head in assent.  
"I'll need you at your worst"  
"That can be arranged"


	11. We're going out with a bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody. I'm still alive, unfortunately, the school occupied, and still does, a good part of my time. This chapter is a bit shorter than usual but I hope I can make up for it by publishing the last chapter soon. Thank you very much to those who have followed the story up to here and supported me in this small project. Don't bore you further, enjoy the reading!

Zulema walked casually down the corridor and then stopped in the centre. She looked around and then motioned to the inmates waiting for orders.

It all happened at incredible speed.

A distant scream, the beginning of a fight and two guards running towards the noise unaware of their surroundings.

Clang. Crash. Thud.

Both guards fell to the ground. They were hastily carried to the nearest closet tied after being stripped of their equipment.

While a new guard ran to understand where the noise was coming from, Zulema had already grabbed his gun and conked him out with the back of it. She sneered maliciously to herself as she moved a lock of hair behind her ear in a gracious gesture.

Other similar noises were heard in the distance. Zulema walked towards them, looking around cautiously as she held the previously stolen pistol more firmly.

Arriving at the source of the noise, she found all the guards assigned to the other wing tied to the table legs. Meanwhile, Macarena was talking in the distance with some inmates as they nodded fervently. Zulema strode over to her, lowering her shoulders and adjusting her posture to the weight of the gun.

"Did you count them? Are you sure they are all here? "

Macarena with a hasty gesture of the hand dismissed her companions and then turned completely towards Zulema.

"Yes'"

"Are they all doing what they have to do?"

"Yup"

"Do you have the electronic key?"

"¡Sí, cálmate! ¡Dios mío!"

Zulema pointed the gun straight to her forehead, sinking her gaze into Macarena's eyes, making sure no one was looking at them.

"We won't screw everything up, this is our last chance."

"Ours or yours?"

Zulema rolled her eyes, giggling with a brief incredulous laugh that was absent of her usual warmth. She turned away, then she walked with great strides toward the security room, opening the door with unnecessary force.

"Zulema-"

"Look for the surveillance videos, I take care of the files."

Macarena could not adjust to Zulema's behaviour in the last week since they had decided to plan their escape. She was distant but pretended that everything was fine.    
This was not a Zulema attitude, at all.    
Every time Macarena had tried to talk to her she had cleverly changed the subject, always managing in one way or another to get the better of her and distract her attention.  
Macarena didn't feel like facing Zulema, especially not right now.  
Until now in Zulema's eyes, she had always glimpsed an interest, a challenge, while now her eyes were distant, cold and deadly.  
They let out nothing, no emotions or intentions. They seemed dark obsidian with a primordial mystery, the irrational hidden behind the veil of appearances, the undeniable beast intrinsic in nature. 

Also this time, Macarena decided to let it go, to let the silences fade the palpable tension created between the two. She went to delete the surveillance videos and save the various recordings on a USB stick.

Zulema cross-legged on the desk with the chair in a precarious and unstable balance skillfully scanned the various profiles of the inmates and the monthly reports on the meetings held.

"I found them, vamonos!"

\----------

It was the perfect revolt. Like little industrious ants all the inmates moved from one part of the prison to the other, convinced that they were fighting for their freedom.

But something was wrong. An inmate had turned against an order from Zulema and in a few instants, the scorpion had pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. The inmate now laid on the ground with her mouth still open and her gaze frowning motionless in an unnatural pose on the grey cell floor while a pool of blood was spreading beneath her.

Her trembling companions pressed themselves against the wall trying to make themselves as small as possible, covering their faces with their hands in an instinctive attempt to protect themselves from those horrors.

The tension was more than ever palpable now in Cruz del Sur. Everything was starting to crumble under their feet, at that pace soon there would be nothing left under.

"If I hear a single one of you bitching and screwing everything up, I'll come haunting you for the rest of your shitty lives and when you least expect it, you'll find yourself on the ground like your little friend. Now, move!! "

Zulema with the gun signalled them to move and the women, although, with pale and empty faces, followed her orders.  
They scattered like a bowed flock frightened by a wolf.

Suddenly, Zulema felt grabbed from behind by the arm and yanked around a corner.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing ?! You-you just killed her. Without even thinking about it. She was one of us! "

Macarena took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, having just rushed towards the unexpected sound of the gunshot while her companions in the midst of the loud noises had not given it any importance.

"One of us? The fact that we are all locked up in this cage does not make us a team. What are you surprised at? Have you ever seen me hesitate to kill someone? "

Macarena approached the woman with her head held high, seeking the gaze of Zulema which jumped from one point to another as the one of a cornered animal.

"With me, more than once. Obtaining freedom does not have to cost the life of any other innocent, within these walls there have already been too many injustices as we have both been able to see"

"I don't have to answer to you for anything. I'll get out of this place by knocking down the walls if necessary. And if you'll follow me or not, I don't care. You should have left that evening but apparently, you don't even have the courage to get out of this mortal cage. You need someone to force you to, my little princess. "

"You're the one to talk, the one who went back to the prison honking a bus to take a short picnic just a few months ago?"

In an instant, Zulema was on top of her. She grabbed her scalp, yanking her hair back whispering smugly in her ear.

"And you have no idea how much I regret it every day"

Macarena sobbed muttering disconnected words

"I-I thought we would leave together"

"How stupid of  _ us  _ to even think so"

In the blink of an eye, Zulema had let her go and turned the corner. Macarena rolled her eyes, emitting a deep sigh both of relief and to control the anger that had begun to mount in her for weeks and now, more than ever demanded to be heard. Her watering eyes resembled the ones of her reflection in the dream where Zulema had sunk her canines in her throat.

She was a victim, but she had always wanted to. Even when she fought for her freedom with clenched teeth. Zulema was right, she had passed all her life hidden behind a curtain as self-defence. She had not run away because deep down she knew she would not be able to leave alone. What had taken her to prison was the same thing now which prevented her from being free. And Zulema knew it, she accused her behaviour but deep down, perhaps too indulgently, she was helping her. She was giving her a chance for a new life because she knew that Macarena otherwise would die here, one way or another.

\------------

It was late at night.

The air was thick with ash and smoke that rose like impending darkness over the whole Cruz del Sur while the revolt was racing inside. 

The fire blazed inside the hen house while some uncaged hens struggled, trying to escape. Several feathers rose into the air, fluttering like delicate butterflies in the swirl of tongues of fire.  
The moon remained impassive, silvery illuminating the contours of the walls.

Macarena let out a long dejected sigh. She hugged her knees to her chest as she looked out over the gloomy landscape from the warehouse.    
  
It was indeed the end.

Macarena did not hear the footsteps but felt the presence of the other before she could sit next to her.  
Zulema lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She narrowed her eyes as she was used to and exhaled the held smoke.  
They remained silent for a long time until Macarena could no longer hold back her anger which, however, when it came out of her lips, subsided, to the point of being a surrendered statement.

"We made scorched earth of everything we had left"

Zulema nodded as she continued to observe an indistinct point in the sky.

"It was inevitable."

Finally, she got up and walked away.

Macarena pressed her legs harder against her chest. She let several tears, one after the other, fall inexorably from her face as she bit her lip insistently, finding relief in the rusty taste of blood.

She was conflicted, caught between two fires; the gratitude and her self-hatred that was preventing every attempt of reconciliation. She was paralyzed, lost in the unknown while her house was burning down in front of her eyes.  
  
It was too late.  
  
Ash filtering between her fingers, all that was left in this pile of rubble.

\---------

At dawn outside the prison in the siege of the various police forces ready to intervene, everything was feverish. From the top of a hole, Goya grinned loudly and pointed the finger at a short, red-haired woman who, with her head held high, was turning angrily giving orders to the various enforcement agencies.

"She is in charge, I'm sure. She's the same woman I had stolen all those nice clothes last year"

"Bueno, hand me the phone”

Zulema fervently pressed several buttons while returning beside Goya. The phone ringed two times.

"We certainly don't want to stain that beautiful jacket with your blood, do we?"

Zulema narrowed her gaze as she watched the movements of the woman outside the prison through a hole as she clutched white-knuckled the phone.

"Who am I talking to?"

"I wonder how much you care about your life. Because in your place, I would think very well about what to do next. You know, with us criminals you never know for sure... We are dangerous, unpredictable people. Who knows what ace up my sleeve I might have against you"

"You're bluffing, You think you can threaten me while being surrounded by a whole police force-"

Zulema huffed smugly, interrupting the woman.

"Of course I can, and I really think you want to hear what I have to say. Do you know what is worse than death? This shitty place and with all the evidence I've gathered I'm pretty sure that if they accidentally get into the wrong hands I don't think you'll ever see sunlight again.    
As you well know, inmates can become very dangerous when they start harbouring resentment. I think a lot of people have a certain grudge against you here, don't you? It would be a real shame if you were accidentally to find yourself in the cell with any of them. "

"What do you want?"

"Two one-way tickets to get out of here. You have a week or everything that I have, and believe me, it’s a lot, it’s going to be published"

"The revolt?"

"We will make it disappear into thin air, there will be nothing left but a few burnt chairs. You will pass as the champion of justice who brought order back while we will no longer be one of your many problems. This is a win-win. "

"I accept."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every kudos and comment is highly appreciated.


	12. Cleansing Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I would like to thank a very special person who was close to me not only in writing the story but also in my daily difficulties and to whom I dedicate the whole story. Thank you with all of my heart.  
> Secondly, I wanted to apologize to you all for making you wait so long for the final chapter. Unfortunately, my life at the moment is very busy, so it is difficult for me to carve out the time necessary to write.  
> I won't hold you back any longer except to wish you a good reading and recommend you to read the notes at the end of the chapter.  
> Big Hugs!

It was shortly before their release.

Ever since Zulema's call, the air had become even more suffocating inside the prison as if suddenly the mere prospect of leaving all this behind was unbearable.

Macarena was pacing back and forth, trying to sort out the tangle of thoughts that was crushing her when she saw Zulema enter the courtyard.

The scorpion was walking with a light and almost reticent step, like the one of a beast shortly before attacking its unaware prey.

But she didn't reach Macarena or anyone else.

She just leaned against the net behind her, inhaling deeply a cigarette she was holding in her right hand. She gently lifted her head back to release the held breath that lingered in the cold morning air and then rise into the sky above them.

Macarena reached her well aware that she had just entered the web of a spider. Quite a poisonous one.

She glimpsed a mischievous smile in Zulema when the woman saw her approaching from the corner of her eye. Nevertheless, she kept walking.

"We need to talk."

Macarena hid her fidgeting hands in her trouser pockets, waiting for the woman's answer. Zulema didn't at first, enjoying her cigarette and savouring Macarena's insecurity.

"Do we?"

Zulema kept her gaze fixed upwards without ever meeting the other's eyes, letting her weight sink even further into the net behind her.

"I don't know about you but I don't want to leave pretending that nothing ever happened"

Zulema's eyes were suddenly upon her, from absent, almost bored, they seemed to have caught fire with an indomitable feeling.

Zulema hinted at a smile that did not presuppose anything good. Giving herself a slight push, she broke away from the net she was leaning on to find herself a few millimetres from Macarena's face. She bit her lower lip sensually as her lips curled into a mischievous smile.

"How would you have done that night if only you had been able to?"

Macarena swallowed as her gaze inadvertently flickered on the tooth that was sinking into the woman's lower lip.

"Stop it"

Zulema moved closer and then whispered, staring at her intently with an air of defiance as their lips brushed almost imperceptibly enough for inciting a shiver that went through both of them as if a single electric current had pervaded both of them at the same time.

"To do what?"

The air just exhaled by Zulema entered Macarena's lungs, sinking deeper, reaching every nook and cranny of her innards, the movements of Zulema's lips now imprinted on the other's lips like indelible ink.

A toxic air dulled all Macarena's senses right now that more than ever she needed control.

But even now Zulema was depriving her of it just to prove a point; she was undoubtedly in charge.

No matter how many times Macarena had the upper hand, Zulema would always win the war. They weren't on the same level and never would be because the scorpion would always have the last word on it. This was what she wanted to remind her; that Macarena hadn't hurt her by wanting to leave at any moment without telling her anything, that she didn't need anyone and that now, for the umpteenth time, she would prove it.

Macarena grabbed her by the collar of her uniform pushing her against the net in front of her, angrily trying to fight back any inopportune emotion that was mounting in her at an unprecedented speed. She couldn't let go, not now, losing was no longer an option.

"You can't do without it, isn't it?"

With a jerk of her neck, Zulema freed herself from Macarena's iron grip and then contracted her jaw running her tongue over her incisors.

She narrowed her eyes pouting like a child. Then she solemnly shook her head, answering with a lapidary tone.

"Never."

Zulema slowly approached Macarena's left ear and after brushing her jaw with her lips she whispered seductively into her ear in a hot breath of air that struck the blonde in a shiver that reached the tip of her feet.

"As if we both didn't know that all of this turns you on incredibly."

Macarena swayed, clinging to Zulema's shoulders as her lids grew heavy. She managed to grind an answer between her teeth;

"It's always a game for you, you can't accept to lose"

Zulema lifted her and then stroked her face and forced the woman to look at her by gently lifting her chin. She smiled wickedly at her.

She held her on her fingertips and she knew it. She enjoyed seeing her finally fragile. At last, it seemed that everything was back to normal.

"We both lost in case you haven't noticed yet"

With a brusque gesture, Zulema pushed her away and without looking back walked away casually as if nothing ever happened.

Macarena smiled bitterly and then nodded to herself, trying in vain to hold back her tears.

\-----------

It was the night before their release.

It was only a few hours away.

The years spent in prison seemed suspended in the void, full of so much experience but at the same time insipid, empty compared to the world outside those walls.

It was a starless night and the moon was perpetually hidden by grey clouds that loomed, making that night even more tragic.

The air was icy, almost pungent, inside the dilapidated warehouse. Macarena couldn't understand how all had suddenly come to an end.

It seemed that the past was repeating itself, a deafening tone vibrated in the air; the hiss of what is dead and does not come back.

Macarena couldn't sleep. After all, how could she? She had nothing left and no one left. She knew that outside of this cage no one would be listening to her singing. After all, who stops to listen to the whistle of a free and not imprisoned canary? The future promised nothing but desolation.

The creaking of the floor, an unexpected heat and that inexplicable spark that pervaded the air whenever Zulema was around; this was what caused Macarena to turn around.

The other woman stood with folded arms looking at her intently as if waiting for her move. Her eyes looked so deep in the almost absolute darkness. They searched for her eyes as if looking for a confirmation. But Macarena was unable to make promises or prayers that night. So she too stood looking at her for a long time without approaching, although she could physically feel the distance of the other as a lack of an integral part of herself.

That night was frightening and they who for years had fought against everything and everyone without ever giving up or abandoning themselves to fear; there they trembled and sought the tacit presence of the other without approaching, too scared of not being able to separate later.

"So it is goodbye? We said so many that I started not believing it anymore"

"But things are different now"

"Yes, now there is nothing left to bind us, we are finally free!"

Macarena smiled sarcastically as she raised his arms as if to indicate all the ash that had managed to slip into every corner of the prison after the revolt.

"What will we do?"

"We will go on."

"Where will you go?"

"Here and there"

Macarena internally smiled at the thought that Zulema still wanted to be mysterious about her projects after all. Bad habits die hard.

"Sounds a lot like you."

Zulema raised her chin as if to ask her the same question while watching her carefully.

"I will not be able to go on and if I ever do, my life will be nothing more than a suffocating monotony between a squalid underpaid job and evenings of bad level sitcoms. Well, if it all goes well..."

"Oh you are such a drama queen! You are a criminal! Once inside you can't go out anymore, right? Steal from some rich man this time instead of falling in love with him."

Macarena rolled her eyes in irritation.

"Oh, thank you so much for the tip. But what about you, hmm? Are you going to deal drugs until you find yourself in a desert surrounded by Mexicans pissed off because you couldn't stay in your place? Besides, I don't think you could avoid it with that superego of yours "

Zulema laughed bitterly.

"If I ever die it will because of a _puta_ like you and I don't have among my plans to die soon"

Macarena, seized by a moment of weakness, embraced her, plunging her face into the hair of the other, trying in the last touch and breath to soak in as much as possible all that her indissoluble half was for her; hoping to carry that sweet memory forever with her, hoping it might be enough to depart from that sweet poison. She inhaled her intoxicating scent and squeezed her more tightly, hoping to sink into the other's body, to become liquid and to merge with it to the point of making indistinguishable what was her and what the other.

Zulema did not return her hug. She stood still and composed waiting for Macarena to find the strength to let her go.

Zulema then smiled at her bitterly when Macarena broke away to seek her gaze desperately looking for answers, accusing her of not even giving her a last hug with unleashed tears.

The problem wasn't that the scorpion didn't want to hug her, she couldn't; because it would hurt too much and then Zulema wouldn't be able to let her go. But in the end, she could not avoid caressing her face. She tried to comfort the blonde in a desperate attempt to comfort herself as well. She smiled at her openly, without it being veiled by sarcasm, defiance or presumption. Her eyes softened, letting everything leak out of them, like that night when the two had made love. Everything would be fine; that the sweet promise she tried to pour out.

It was necessary for both of them that their abruptly broken relationship remained so.

On that dismal night, they both needed a sweet promise although neither was naive enough to believe it.

\---------

It was raining heavily on that gloomy morning; the greyness of the clouds in perfect harmony with the walls of the entire prison.

The exit of Macarena and Zulema from the prison was similar to a procession while all the inmates on each floor craned their necks to understand what would become of them.

No one was able to understand how the police had managed to penetrate so easily inside the prison but they all had knew that when things would have quiet down, there would have been several repercussions.

The two guards pushing Zulema and Macarena forward stopped in the centre. The two prisoners with their hands cuffed behind their backs kept their heads down meekly.

Suddenly the club strucked first Zulema across the back then Macarena on the belly. Both fell tumbling to the ground, spitting blood.

The other guard slammed his club against a nearby iron ladder to further attract the attention of the prisoners.

"Let this serve as an example! You are always complaining about your condition but what rights do you ever think you have? You are beasts and you should only be thankful for the privileges granted to you. If you want to survive in here you have to start lowering your head otherwise this is the end you will end up! "

The guard pointed at the women lying on the ground as they writhed with trembling hands gripping the affected body parts.

"Do you want to know where your freedom champions will end up? In a hole so deep that it can never go up again. They will regret not being dead. And you can either learn from their experience or end up like them. Think you can't fall deeper? Let me differ! Do bye-bye with your hand because you will never see your two friends again."

Macarena and Zulema were dragged away in front of the incredulous and terrified looks of their companions. Once outside the establishment, they were thrown into the mud and gravel only to be abandoned there.

The first to recover was Zulema who got up although still trembling. Macarena roared loudly ready to bite off the carotid artery of the two guards, banging her fists on the ground violently but then she looked up and noticed the two cars that were standing waiting for them with the gates open. In the meantime, they both had had their handcuffs removed without their noticing.

In front of them, hands folded, was the same red-haired woman with whom Zulema had spoken on the phone.

"I hope you will excuse the little show just staged. You know you must serve as an example for your companions. What would they think if they saw you come out free, abandoning them all like this? Oh, I think I wouldn't have been the only one they would have felt resentment. You have to thank me, it's a win-win after all, isn't it?"

Zulema burst out laughing loudly and then rushed against her shouting a BUUUU at the woman who jumped and fell badly breaking the heel of her delicate red shoe.

Zulema violently tore off her pearl necklace. The pearls scattered on the ground like little shooting stars; precious pearls in the middle of mud and gravel.

"Don't think for a moment that you are in charge here. Worms like you have to go through their entire lives praying that someone won't unmask them. Don't think you can threaten me. You don't know anything about what real life is. I have never hidden, I have never denied myself. If I don't contact a person within 24 hours, they will publish all the information I gathered about you during the riot and you will be completely screwed. Giving me attitude, are you?"

The trembling woman stepped back and then raised her hands in surrender.

Zulema strode towards one of the cars and then stopped there. She hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to Saray, _su hermana_. They had to left like two cowards and this irked her, but in the end, it didn't matter. Nothing really mattered anymore. It was time to take off these chains that until now had tied them to this miserable existence within the four walls of the prison.

But something still held her back.

Macarena was desperately seeking Zulema's gaze. She didn't seem to have even noticed the other car waiting for her with the door open. Zulema hadn't even given her a last look, she seemed to have already forgotten about her. It was their last farewell and yet the other one seemed completely indifferent.

Something rumbled in Macarena, so loud it almost made her scream. How? How could she?

Zulema was about to open the door and then leave!

Macarena wanted to scream, then run, grab the other woman and turn her around, forcing her to listen even by force. She wanted to do something, anything, but she didn't. A silent tension kept her silent and motionless in anticipation.

Unexpectedly, as in a last moment of weakness, Zulema turned around. instead of getting into the car at the last, she had sought the blonde's gaze.

In the end, she had granted her a last goodbye, it had been stronger than her anyway. Macarena scolded herself; a pathetic trembling girl in tears, that's what she must seem!

The other looked impassive in seeing her miserable condition. She raised her head in a majestic nod, smiling broadly at her.

It was one of those rare smiles. Free of sarcasm or defiance. It was the genuine manifestation of Zulema's state of mind. It was splendid, and an indomitable freedom seemed to hover in it. How lucky the blonde had been to have known the one she had started unconsciously to recognize for some time as an integral part of herself. Because Zulema had taken everything away from her but had also left her a lot.

In suffering and imprisonment, Macarena had had the opportunity to know a part of herself that she had always suffocated in the comforts of her monotonous life. The prison had not reformed her into a better citizen. The prison had torn her apart but in the rubble and fragments of destruction, she had rediscovered her strength. And now completely alone in a hostile world, she knew she would be able to carry on. Despite the reflections just made, she faltered in her risolve. She had forged herself into a fighter in this captivity but would this be enough outside those walls?

Macarena searched Zulema's gaze and smile trying to found all the answers that until now had always been denied.

She found nothing, as in a dream the fragile moment was immediately passed, broken forever.

Zulema got into the car and closed the door.

The car started lifting with its departure the water of the nearby puddles. Macarena remained completely still trying to savour this last moment of closeness with Zulema, trying to absorb and accept the distance that was forming between the two of them.

She touched her face and realized that through her tears she had never stopped returning Zulema's smile the whole time. She wanted to tell her so much, yet everything seemed to have lost its importance in front of the smile of the other. Zulema was gone, she would not found her the next morning in the common canteen nor would she be able to wait for her to sneak into her cell at night. Suddenly the world seemed too big for her. It seemed immense; the oxygen in her lungs suddenly too much.

She grabbed with shaking hands the door and went inside the car.

The automobile took off in the opposite direction, quietly moving away from Cruz del Sur and from Zulema. Macarena watched the prison recede until it became a point in the distance. Those walls that had burdened her shoulders for years now seemed to have lost all threat and weight. They were but one of the many buildings in the world. For a brief moment Macarena thought she had left thier home but immediately recovered and turned forward.

She suddenly realized that Zulema had just given her the greatest gift. Her gesture had been the most selfless anyone had ever done for her. She had given her the freedom she hadn't been able to take on her own at the time. She had taken her hand and then let her go on her way.  
Because after all, Zulema knew that as long as they would be together Macarena would not really go on with her life. Macarena would always remain in a precarious balance between past and future. So _el elfo del puto infierno_ made a drastic gesture even though it caused her deep pain since Macarena was the closest thing to a home she ever had in all her life.  
Zulema had released her and had screamed at her silently with her smile to fly away and not to look back.

The landscape around Macarena was splendid and as if seeing everything for the first time she lingered on every detail with childish curiosity.

It was a new beginning, whatever it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's an unfair ending but from the start, I felt it was necessary. When I considered it I had in mind a sequel which by the way is already well structured, but even though I realized in the end that maybe the sequel would never come to life I didn't have the strength to change the ending I had in mind into something more sweetened that would have seemed forced to me. However, I don't know if I will ever be able to write it since I would be sorry to start something and then leave it unfinished. The sequel would be called Resurfacing and I very much hope it will be released one day. In the meantime, I thank everyone who has read this story which has been very educational and therapeutic for me. It would mean the world to me to read the comments of all the people who have made it this far just to know they've been there. I can never thank you enough for the time you have dedicated to me by reading this story. See you soon, I hope :).


End file.
